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There are still a couple of days of amnesty week left, in case any of you want to haul a bunch of junk to the dump. This will be a busy weekend at the dump as people drop off and pick up.

I always find the fall is a great time for picking up gardening supplies for next year. Pots, planters, tools, hoses, sprinklers, lawn seed and fertilizer - it is all there for those willing to pick it up. Also, when some people clean up their gardens, they can be rather merciless. One year, I found a bunch of green tomatoes being thrown out with their vines and they can easily be turned into relish or chutney. Seems kind of a waste to go to all that work to grow them simply to throw them out, just because they are still green.

The fall is a good time to collect up seeds and bulbs that people throw out with their flowers. Poppy seeds are easy to collect and they grow well the next year. Using the internet, I discovered how to find petunia seeds and they are tiny. I have been collecting them from wave petunias that I like the color of, so I will see how well they germinate next spring. Bulbs are, of course, easy to collect and store for the winter and it is always interesting seeing what comes up the following year.

The city really should have a horticulture society that offers gardening tips to people new to the North and maybe even hold a fall fair or some garden tours. Some things grow well up here and some don't and even though our season is short, people really do manage to grow some great flowers, fruits and vegetables.

When Yellowknife came into being in 1935, it was during the Great Depression and a number of the people who moved here came from farms on the prairies. Many of them put in their own flower and vegetable gardens. Some even set up market gardens, which actually did quite well, growing vegetables for the town. Con Mine put in a community garden for its employees and gardening was a popular pastime.

So Yellowknife has a long history of gardening and it is something that I think should be encouraged. Every apartment building or housing complex should have their own community garden for residents and so should the jail because gardening helps people cope and it is an enjoyable pastime.

With the ecology movement and the push to consume local products, I think the city should encourage commercial greenhouses using waste heat from buildings and the Jackfish power station. There is no reason why Yellowknife couldn't grow a percentage of its own fruits, vegetables and bedding plants. As I have said before, there are enough materials, glass and soil that gets thrown into the dump every year to build a greenhouse complex. Just think of the greenhouse gases that could be saved and the carbon offsets that would occur, if we grew some of our own vegetables and bedding plants and there is no reason why we can't. Also a proper compost facility would mean we wouldn't have to import potting soil.

I have noticed that around the old mines berries grow well and turning some of the old mine properties into large raspberry, gooseberry and Saskatoon berry areas might prove to be a good utilization of the land.

Think green - think gardening.

- Walt Humphries is a well-known Yellowknife artist and prospector