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Whati volunteers harvest 1,000 pounds of potatoes
Harvested community garden vegetables given out to community members

Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

WHATI/LAC LA MARTRE
Whati residents took home a half ton of potatoes from the community garden this year, says gardener Jim Stauffer.

NNSL photo/graphic

Whati residents were busy harvesting potatoes at the community garden earlier in September. The garden yielded more than 1,000 pounds of potatoes this season, which were available to anyone in the community. - photo courtesy of Jim Stauffer

"We had 1,013 pounds," he said. "We weighed everybody's bag as they left the garden."

Whati's 40-by-70-foot garden sits on the outskirts of the community, where it had been primarily tended by Stauffer for the past three years. He began volunteering four years ago.

The initial plan was to provide residents with garden plots where they could grow their own vegetables, Stauffer said. But for a number of reasons, including people worrying about bears visiting the garden's isolated location, plots were being abandoned.

After realizing that vegetables such as turnips, radishes and kale weren't popular with residents, Stauffer proposed focusing more on potatoes, which community members liked and were easier to take care of.

Since then, Stauffer said the garden has yielded more than 1,000 pounds of potatoes two years in a row, all of which were available to residents for free.

"People are very happy to be able to come and get free potatoes," Stauffer said. "Overall, it's a significant amount."

Posters throughout the community and Facebook posts reminded residents they can come out to the garden on harvest day and take as much as they need.

Though Stauffer intended to begin the harvest at about 6 p.m, he said most of the crop was long gone by then.

"People showed up earlier than the scheduled time," he said.

He estimated about 50 families and individuals took home this year's potatoes. Whati is home to about 492 residents.

In order to make the garden a success, Stauffer said improvements had to be made when he began volunteering.

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment provided a rototiller and irrigation pumps, which meant plants no longer had to be watered by hand.

This year, Stauffer asked the community government of Whati to hire a full-time gardener trainee who could act as a caretaker.

Donovan Simpson was hired in June and has now participated in a variety of gardening and food preservation workshops through the Northern Farm Training Institute in Hay River.

For Simpson, the garden has been a way to develop new skills.

"I've just been learning about compost, soil, growing plants, all the different steps you need to take," he said. "I've learned a lot from this job."

Simpson isn't the only one using the garden as a learning opportunity, Stauffer said.

As Whati's community adult educator at Aurora College's community learning centre, Stauffer has found ways to incorporate the garden into the centre's existing programming.

One of those ways is through what Stauffer calls a "project-based learning" component of the adult literacy and basic education program.

Students learn math by measuring and distributing fertilizer for garden soil and calculating the space needed between rows of plants.

This year, they constructed scale models of three by ten raised garden beds, which they later built using tools such as handsaws, drills and screw guns.

"Instead of just filling out worksheets on math, we're actually applying it," Stauffer said.

Stauffer said the goal is to teach practical math and writing skills while encouraging the use of raised garden beds in the community. The beds would allow more people to grow vegetables right in their own backyards.

Staffer said the program has caught on and he's now considering offering it as an evening class to allow more people to participate after work.

But for now, Simpson and Stauffer have been concentrating on the garden's expansion, which began earlier this month.

The community government provided equipment to clear additional space, which should increase the garden's area threefold, Stauffer said.

Stauffer said he hopes the community will consider hiring an additional gardener trainee next year to help keep up with the work.

In the meantime, Simpson said he is enjoying his last weeks in the garden before winter.

"Just being more out there at the garden, you get a sense of nature there, too," he said.

Stauffer said he agreed.

"The fun part of just going out and putting your hands in the soil and actually pulling food out of the soil, that's something you can't really measure in economic terms," he said.

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