Gardeners cover tons of ground
GNWT, garden collective co-host first of garden series on soil
Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Friday, May 13, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
When it comes right down to it, ensuring soil is healthy is like treating your body with quality nutrients.
Lone Sorensen, agricultural mentor, holds up a red Russian kale as part of a demonstration to show how to deliver nutrients from compost to plants. - Simon Whitehouse/NNSL photo |
"You need to give your soil a buffet of nutrients like you would with a good breakfast or a good meal," Lone Sorensen told a group of 42 enthusiastic gardeners at Side Door Ministries on Monday.
Sorensen, who is in her second seasonal year as an "agricultural mentor" for the Department of Industry, Tourism, and Investment co-hosted the first of eight planned gardening workshops of the year called the Grow Together Garden Series. As an agricultural producer for 28 years in Yellowknife, Sorensen's job is to visit communities in the North Slave region to spur local growing initiatives.
Throughout the year she will be working with the Yellowknife Community Garden Collective to bring important information on how to get quality crops throughout the season in Northern soils.
According to a press release from ITI Monday, the series of workshops are part of the Growing Forward II agreement between the federal and territorial governments. Through the agreement, both levels of government will put $6.1 million toward agriculture and small-scale food production over the next five years.
On Monday, Sorensen was joined by Sandra Mann of the garden collective, who provided an overview of how to test soil health with colour-coded, home testing kits. She also discussed how to adjust pH levels in the soil for maximum benefit and how to add compost or manure to boost growing efforts.
Most in attendance indicated by show of hands that they had less than five years of experience gardening.
"I am new to this and it is quite overwhelming," said Leon Braden, who is trying to garden routinely for the first time in order to eat healthier. "I'm learning why the spinach I have already planted is dead. They look like they are dehydrated."
Wayne Overbo, who came with his wife, said he has been yard gardening at home in Yellowknife for about 20 years. He's taken up a community plot for the first time this year at the Woolgar and Kam Lake Road garden.
"When you're a long-time gardener, you think you know everything, especially if you've been doing it for a long time in the same place," he said, adding that he has grown potatoes, peas, carrots, and rhubarb in addition to flowers. "But it is good to hear some of the technical reasons for why you should do certain things like testing the soil or what too much or too little of certain nutrients means. It can elevate your gardening to a more successful experience and we are hoping that what we learned tonight can help us at home and at the community garden."
Sorensen was pleased with the number of people who attended the first workshop and optimistic about attendance in the future. She hopes to accommodate everyone at the workshops, from the beginner gardeners who have never planted a seed, to seasoned growers looking to fine-tune their long-held practices.
"This is an overwhelmingly great response and I think it is because of the collaboration and working together," she said, after the workshop.
"There is a growing interest and people are more serious about growing food and it is my job to help as many people as possible have the skills to grow food. Out of that it will mean more food production, including some market gardeners, and the whole local economic thing as well."
Beginning with community gardens and spaces to network with other green thumbs, Sorensen said there are opportunities to learn and be inspired to grow.
The next workshop will be held June 20 at the Yellowknife Community Garden Collective garden at Woolgar Ave.
