Jake Kennedy
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 20/02) - Although she says she's only been gardening for two years, Shelly Johnson has been getting her hands dirty most of her life.

Shelly Johnson, with daughter Hayley, has only been gardening for two years, but already sits as chair of the Yellowknife community garden. - Jake Kennedy/NNSL photo

"I used to sit in my mom's garden while she worked, digging through the dirt," she says.

"I don't know that I was helping much. But I'm sure I was having a good time."

Johnson moved out of her mother's garden, and now digs through the soil at the Yellowknife Community Garden, at the corner of Woolgar Avenue and Kam Lake Road.

She joined the community garden collective of more than 100 people two years ago and says she was "talked into" joining the board of directors this year, where she sits as the chair.

"I help do meetings, organizing, make sure the garden functions properly, write letters, organize the AGM (annual general meeting), and do funding reports.

"I think that's about it," she adds with a wry smile.

Johnson says she enjoys working with the garden.

But when asked what the best part of her job is, her love of gardening begins to show.

"There's just so much to learn about gardening -- about complimentary planting, which seeds grow best up here, how to enrich the soil in an organic way."

The worst part?

"Having to wait for everything to grow!" she laughs.

Johnson said one of the most important things she is learning is how to garden in the North, where a short growing season and poor soil work against gardeners.

"You just learn by trial and error which crops work, which don't, and how to get the soil into good shape with fertilizers and such," she says.

Johnson says the crop that has grown best for her this year has been red potatoes.

Lettuce and radishes have also done well over the summer, she says.

Johnson's enthusiasm for community gardening is contagious.

And after tasting one of her garden-grown organic potatoes, images of standing in a straw farmer's hat over a field of potatoes could swim through one's mind.

This enthusiasm has caught her husband, Jo, as well. He acts as treasurer for the community garden.

"And this is the newest member of the collective," she says, holding up her three-and-a-half-month-old daughter, Hayley.

"Next year she'll be right in there eating the dirt."