Accessing gems from /home dir

I’m running Linux on a Toshiba Satellite laptop.

In my home dir I have Ruby 1.8.6.
In my root dir I have Ruby 1.8.4 which was installed
from my distro’s repositories (PCLinuxOS).

All the gems I’ve loaded run under root/1.8.4 control.
I can’t access these gems in my home dir with 1.8.6.

What do I have to do to gain access to these gems
when I run 1.8.6 in my home dir?

Thanks

jz