Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 16/99) - Dozens of people passed through Stan Hutrya's yard Aug. 15 as part of the fourth Loved Gardens tour and tea sponsored by the Yellowknife ski club.

Hutrya remembers the day with a smile of satisfaction and starts to recount how he got started gardening decades ago.

"I was watching this show on 60 Minutes how in California and Florida they are spraying their vegetables with poison," he said.

"I say, 'My kids aren't going to eat that. That's for sure.'"

Since becoming aware of the extent of pesticides, Hutrya has grown and frozen vegetables such as peas, beets and leeks.

"First you cut the broccoli up into pieces, then you dump them into boiling water for five minutes," he said.

"Then you put in the very cold water to cool them off the proper way. Then you put in small bags and put in the freezer."

Along with his large garden, Hutrya has a greenhouse, though this year he says many of the tomato plants inside have been overtaken by spider mites.

Hutrya arrived in Yellowknife in 1953 from Crowsnest Pass in Alberta, lured up by a job tending bar.

Soon he started work at Con Mine and stayed 25 years until he retired.

Now, 77 years old, he spends an average of seven hours a day grooming his dahlias, peonies and hollyhock along with his prize vegetables.

"I give away lots of flowers to people," he said.

"How can you say ŒNo' when the ladies come here and say ŒOh how lovely,' How can you say, ŒNo?'"

Hutrya is also liberal with the advice that others ask from him.

"A lot of people have problems with snapdragons," he says.

"You rip up the soil a little bit and sprinkle the seeds on top without covering them with soil then just put a fine spray once a day. Cover up with plastic and then when they start coming up take off the plastic so they can breathe."

Hutrya's home at 5212 55th Street was only one of the many sites on the garden tour.

Other sites included the Yellowknife Community Garden Collective at Woolgar Avenue and Kam Lake Road, Shirley and Ken Bibby's garden at 5502 45th Street off School Draw Avenue, Michael Morse's garden at 5208 Lundquist Road and Amanda Mallon and Buddy Essery's garden at 5206 Lundquist Road.