It’s getting closer to the time where greenthumbs will be getting their gardens ready for a new growing season.
To help with that, the city partnered up with Northern Roots to host a gardening workshop on April 17 at the Multiplex. The event saw around two dozen people attend and the idea was to give tips and advice to people on how to increase the area on their property to grow produce.
“That is what we have in Yellowknife (and) we have to work with what we have,”, said France Benoit, the facilitator of the workshop. “We don’t have fields of beautiful soil, so we have to learn how to garden within our limitations, and try to do the best with that, and to share our knowledge.”
Benoit, who’s also the owner/operator of Le Refuge Garden, said she has heard a lot of questions on the topic of how to grow food in general, as well as how to do it in limited space, and she believes that there is a huge interest in the city.
The workshop has been running for around 10 years and has served as a place for gardeners to discuss what has worked and what hasn’t. One of the examples that Benoit shared was how to find the best location if people have a raised garden bed and how to work around within those limited spaces. She also talked about what grows well in Yellowknife and what will grow better in the sun or in the shade.
One method Benoit mentioned that works well is using cloth bags to grow food, which she finds versatile.
“Cloth bags are a good option because they come in different sizes, adapt to the food you want to grow, and they sit really well on uneven ground,” she said. “If you use a container, you need a flat surface but with a cloth bag, you don’t have that problem.”
Lone Sorensen, the owner of Northern Roots, was also at the workshop to share her own recipes for soil. She believes that picking up skills to grow food is important to being self-sufficient.
Sorensen hosts her own mentorship programs which are designed to “transform your yard into a food garden”. That’s funded by the GNWT under the Canadian Agriculture Partnership and she noted that it has signed up to full capacity quickly.
The workshop is part of the city’s food and agriculture strategy, which is touted as a way to “enhance people’s skills in self-sufficiency and to grow the local food economy”.