Jillian Dickson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 26/05) - This summer's cool weather didn't stop veggie crops from sprouting out of public and private gardens throughout the city.

Joyce Gilchrist and her gardening partner Tasha Stephenson tend to a 10 by 25 ft. plot at the community garden on the corner of Kam Lake Rd. and Woolgar Ave.

Joyce Gilchrist offers a hand full of delicious, organic peas from her plot in the community garden on the corner of Kam Lake Road and Woolgar Avenue.

Their plot is thick with beets, beans, carrots, lettuce, onions, peas, potatoes, radishes, swiss chard, and zucchini, all of it organic and most ripe and ready for harvest.

"We get a little over-zealous in the beginning and plant thick," said Gilchrist, kneeling beside a radish bigger than a baseball.

"Sometimes we barely have room to harvest."

Gilchrist worried that her harvest might be disappointing, but other than a little frost in June that slowed the beans and zucchini only slightly, the growing season was great.

That means plenty of veggie donations for the local food banks - a requirement of the community garden collective.

"My advice is: plant as early as you can, water a lot, and weed if you think you need to.

Also, root vegetables typically respond better to Yellowknife's weather than other, above-ground plants," she advises.

Gilchrist and Stephenson planted at the end of May - a risky time according to some gardeners.

"In mid-winter I'm seed shopping in the catalogues and start chomping at the bit to get the garden going," said Gilchrist.

"It adds immense quality to my life because I love to garden. It's great to have fresh veggies and to be outside."

Just down the road - on the corner of Norseman and Fairchild - Mireille Richer is revelling in a harvest of giant cabbages.

She advises to plant after the first full moon in June.

"That way you're safe from frost," said Richer.

Besides cabbages, Richer planted red potatoes, onions and zucchini's in her private garden this year.

"I didn't grow that much this year because I just had too much to do."

She's been growing food since the early 90's and learned through trial and error.

"Some stuff grew and some stuff didn't."

Tricks of the trade

As most gardeners do, Richer has plenty of gardening tricks up her sleeve.

"I use a 100 gallon water tank, let the chemicals settle and evaporate, and wait for the water to warm up before watering the plants."

She also builds her own soil - adding black dirt, sand and sometimes fertilizer.

Richer says growing your own veggies is the way to go.

"You know they're always fresh. And if I'm cooking and need some potatoes - Bang! I've got some."

One year a few Japanese tourists walked by her yard and stared in disbelief at Richer in her garden.

"They couldn't believe we could grow things in Yellowknife," she said.