These Yellowknife gardeners just ate their last carrots and potatoes — from last summer

CBC

2 days ago

With a cool space and peat moss, gardener Dwayne Wohlgemuth says anyone could do it
Image | Dwayne Wohlgemuth
Caption: Dwayne Wohlgemuth is able to make his produce last nearly the whole year by storing his bounty in a cold cellar and using peat moss to prevent mold and rot. (CBC)
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While many gardeners in the North are busy planting for the coming summer, some Yellowknifers are still finishing their produce from last year.
Dwayne Wohlgemuth just finished his last carrot a couple weeks ago after finding it in storage while he was looking for a beet, also from last summer's crop.
"I was like woohoo, I've got another carrot," he said.
He says it was the best carrot he's ever eaten.
"It was still perfect. It wasn't even soft," he said.
Wohlgemuth is a serious gardener.
He estimates he had a crop of about 30 pounds of carrots from his garden last year, and even more beets, along with a wealth of various greens in his freezer. He also hunts, and cans bison meat, lard, and bone broth to eat throughout the winter.
"I hardly buy any food. I don't buy any fruit, I don't buy any vegetables, I don't buy any meat. My food bill is so low," he said.
Wohlgemuth is able to store this bounty of food throughout the year thanks to small cold cellar he dug below the entryway of his Yellowknife house. The insulated, underground space stays between about 9 to 5 C all year long, keeping vegetables and canned goods from freezing in the winter or spoiling in the summer.
It's something he learned from his parents.
"I grew up in a house in Alberta that my parents had built this massive cellar, and we had it so full all the time of root vegetables and canning," he said.
"When I built this house I thought 'I've got to put a cellar in there.'"
He uses peat moss to keep the vegetables dry to prevent mould and rot — separating the vegetables into layers to ensure that there are no spots where they touch.
Kevin O'Reilly, another avid gardener in Yellowknife, has also managed to make his produce last until May, thanks to a crawlspace below his Yellowknife home which stays about 2 or 3 C all year long.
Each year, he puts down a tarp on the sand in the crawlspace, and he and his wife load up plastic crates with vegetables separated by layers of wood shavings, similar to how Wohlgemuth uses peat moss.
"I just took the last of the carrots out a couple days ago, and some of them were almost like you took them right out of the garden," he said.
Overall, O'Reilly said about three quarters of his carrots were still good to eat in May — not bad, after months outside.
He also still has some potatoes. Some will be used for seed potatoes in his garden this year, but O'Reilly said a lot of them are still good to eat.
Wohlgemuth acknowledged that not everyone has a house where they can dig a cellar, or a convenient crawlspace, but he says a lot of the techniques he uses can be put in practice anywhere.
Root vegetables like carrots and beets could be packed in peat moss in a cool basement or pantry, Wohlgemuth said, and canned goods can be kept anywhere where they are not exposed to direct light.
Both O'Reilly and Wohlgemuth say they have already planted most of their crops for next year.