Halloween 2012

This year's selection of pumpkins are ready to be gutted.

So, how was your Halloween? After a whole month of planning and decorating we had rain at just the wrong time. It started in mid-afternoon and continued all night. Not that it was really coming down hard, just a fine continuous mist. I'm not really sure if it was factor or not but we only had three groups of trick-or-treaters for a total of eight kids. They all came by car so I'm sure that they didn't get too wet. It was a bit anticlimactic for us though. We were prepared for about twenty or so and now we have all this leftover candy and chips sitting around the house. Who do you suppose will have to eat it all?

Our Halloween display in all its glory!

 We didn't need the kids, we had fun anyway. Hubby was on vacation the week of Halloween so he was able to get all the pumpkins gutted the day before and they had a chance to warm up before carving time. I hate working on them if they have just come in from outside. Brrrrr! We carved five pumpkins this year. I did my traditional "Miss Kitty" and he did an owl, a spider face, a toothy guy and the moons and stars. They took a long time but it was worth the effort. Miss Kitty was the most talked about again this year. Poor Hubby, some day he will carve a pumpkin the kiddies like.

The pumpkin seeds were nice and plump. They made great Devil Seeds!

 

The "October" woodcraft got finished the day before Halloween.

One thing that we appreciated this year was the size of the pumpkin seeds. They seemed to be extra plump for some reason. Maybe the pumpkins were a new variety or maybe it was due to the hot dry summer but the seeds were nice and fat. They made great Devil Seeds. I'll probably be eating them until Christmas!

We've been busy in the craft room again lately. Hubby made this cute October sign from a design we found on the net. It turned out pretty nicely but it was almost November before it got finished. I'll give it another week or so until I pack it away for next year.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures of this year's crew. Bye for now.

Almost ready to go outside for their début.

"Miss Kitty 2012"

"Spider Face" and "The Owl"

"Snaggle Tooth"

Okay, now let's have some kiddies!

Thanks, fellas. You did a great job!

Glowing together for the last time.

In the sunshine the next day.

My Vegetable Garden

So, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? What’s been going on? Well not much to tell the truth. We’ve been busy with life and I guess I’ve been ignoring The Witch’s Island a bit too much. Thanks to those of you have kept in touch anyway.

The vegetable garden in August 2012, just before the harvest started.

It was a fantastic season for the vegetable garden this year. Lots of sunshine and heat, the plants loved it. Everything produced very well and we had so much that we couldn’t use it all and ended up setting up a table at the end of the driveway to give away the excess. The neighbours seemed to appreciate the gesture and we even received a nice thank-you note from one of them.

The onions were huge this year.

In my last post I mentioned that I had bought most of my seeds from Heritage Harvest Seed. Well their stuff worked great. We planted some of everything I listed except the Steeve’s Caseknife and Jacob’s Cattle beans. There just wasn’t enough room to get those in so they will have to wait until next year. Just about every single seed from Heritage germinated and grew into healthy plants. I always plant more than I intend to grow because there are usually some plants that die but these ones beat the odds. I had so many starters that I was begging my friends to take some. I still ended up putting some healthy little plants on the compost heap. What a shame, but I’ll know not to start so many next spring!

That's one BIG Tomato!

Just about every single seed from Heritage germinated and grew into healthy plants. I always plant more than I intend to grow because there are usually some plants that die but these ones beat the odds. I had so many starters that I was begging my friends to take some. I still ended up putting some healthy little plants on the compost heap. What a shame, but I’ll know not to start so many next spring!

Another thing I learned was that four rows of tomatoes are way too many tomato rows! Even in a poor year it would have been too many and it prevented me from putting in some other things like more beans. Next year I’m going to keep it down to just 2 rows.

Even the ceramic owl seems surprised that that
 tomato weighs almost a kilogram!

I taste-tested all the tomatoes as they ripened but I never did really manage to find a favourite variety. There was obvious differences in size and shape but they all tasted great. I guess if I had to pick I would choose the Bonny Best, Uncle Joe and Sylvan Guame varieties but they were all fantastic!

We used as many of the tomatoes as we could. I made mustard pickles, hot dog relish and even some home-made spaghetti sauce and I ate a lot of cheese and tomato sandwiches this year! I'm going to miss them this winter when all I can get are hot-house tomatoes from the grocery store.

The rest of the garden turned out great as well. It looked pretty, too. Everything was so lush and full that it was hard to get down the rows to do the weeding. I guess that's a good problem to have!

The Red Peanut beans ripened very early and we put them into the potting shed to dry and then shell. we had about 12 or 15 plants (half a row) and they produced a total of about three pounds of dried beans.I haven't eaten any of them yet but we will be baking them this winter. Mmmm...

All the tomatoes from Heritage Harvest Seeds did very well and were
heavy producers.

This was the first time I tried planting Asparagus Peas from Vesey's. The description sounded intriguing:  

"Tasty and attractive addition to your garden. Small winged pods taste similar to asparagus when steamed and topped with butter Red blooms make this plant attractive as well. Low growing and spreading. Continues to produce pods throughout the season. Can be started indoors or planted outside once all chance of frost has passed" 

The plants were very attractive and they were still producing blossoms and fruit right up until the end of October when we cleaned out the garden. They were unusual to eat and were best when they were very young. I will probably put them in again next year just because they looked so nice.

The Asparagus Peas were still blooming late into the year.

So besides the garden, what was I doing this summer? With all the beautiful weather I spent as much time at the beach as I could. The new beach tent worked great and went up and down easily and quickly. It made it so much more comfortable the the old umbrella could have.

I also started geo-caching again and even hid one of my own for the first time. It's a fun hobby and it gets us out of the house and exploring in out of way back roads.

Hubby put the final touches on the gazebo. He added power outlets and a couple of strands of rope lights and then panelled the privacy walls with some nice pine boards. It's a beautiful place now to sit in the evening and watch the world go by.

I guess that that's enough news for now. I'll save the rest for the next time, hopefully it won't be six more months before I write again, but, just in case, Merry Christmas! Haha!

Here are a few more pictures, enjoy!

These are the edible portion of the Asparagus Peas. They look like green
beans with wings and they do taste like asparagus if you cook them right.

We dried the pods in the potting shed and then shelled the beans. They do
indeed look like red peanuts!

We stripped off most of the foliage late in the summer to encourage
all the stragglers to ripen.

The Sylvan Guames were not only huge but they were also very meaty
and had very few seeds.

Here are five more varieties. There were definitely differences in texture,
size, shape and the number of seeds. 

These are Uncle Joes. We used this variety while they were green to
make Vera's Mustard Pickles. 

Forme-de-Coeurs were nicely heart shaped as suggested by their name.

The Forme-de-Coeurs were beautiful inside as well.

The Bisons were a good size for sandwiches.

Harbingers produced early and had lots of fruit.

The Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes had very distinct foliage on the plants.
The tomatoes were very tasty, too!

 These are Black Hungarian peppers. They produced very well.

The Matchbox peppers were very hardy. They were one of the last things
to come out of the garden this fall.

The Red Peanut beans were harvested when the pods turned bright red.

The Banana Spiders were back this year. They seem to be around whenever
the weather gets very hot and dry.

The gazebo was FINALLY finished this year! It got some
 interior panelling, electricity outlets and lights.