Season of Shadows Blog

8 Responses to “Halloween Garden: Update 7”

1. autumnforest Says:
   August 24th, 2010 at 8:54 pm

   John, I’m soooo envious! I’ll be moving into an apartment within the month and I will have lots of windowboxes and hanging planters with herbs and tomatoes, but I could never grow pumpkins here–too damn hot. In a few years when I move to Portland, I will definitely be growing pumpkins! I love living it vicariously through you, buddy.

2. Pam Morris Says:
   August 24th, 2010 at 9:30 pm

   oh, those punkin’s are just adorable! (I can’t help it…there’s just something about pumpkins). also, very glad you found a home for the turtle. turtles are fast becoming endangered as a result of road kill and climate change so good for you.

3. Goldie Says:
   August 24th, 2010 at 10:18 pm

   LOOK AT THAT PUMPKIN!!!

   My Lord John!!! She is absolutely STUNNING!!! She looks incredibly healthy and that amazing brilliant orange on her has me over the moon right now. LoL…I might be over Saturn right now with my excitement level. That is truly a very beautiful pumpkin…..amazing color!

   Wow, how amazing is this garden!

   John I am hugely proud of you sweetie and on so many levels, most of which I’ll keep private. Actually you also took the words right from my mind when you said, “…..appreciation and thankfulness for not only what those plants yielded, but also for the learning experience tending to them has provided.” Boy howdy, has your garden, and the Universe, just provided you with some remarkable life lessons. By life I mean of ALL forms of life You always handled everything you did (and do) with a tremendous amount of care, love and very detailed thought. Being a part of, and watching you create your Halloween garden has been an absolute joy for me my friend. You honestly do have a “golden touch” to everything you do…..but don’t get me started

   I only hope that this is something you continue to do in the future with the veggies/fruit that you feel best growing. Your energy is most nurturing John, always has been, and your garden is most reactive to it. I highly encourage you to continue gardening in the near future plus your helping to heal Mother Earth along the way….as much as we can that is.

   I still love the surprise of the turtle though. Even if someone did drop her over your fence, clearly she wasn’t meant to be with them and was meant to find her new home which is the one you found her. She was a very pretty turtle

   Thank you for sharing this experience with us all John. I have deeply appreciated all of the time and effort you put into ALL of your videos when your sharing with us. I always look forward to any of your update videos, or any video for that matter Keep up the great work!

4. Ethan Says:
   August 25th, 2010 at 10:00 am

   Late summer is like the slow upward anticipation you feel on a roller coaster. You know the thrill is just over the hill and that it will be over all to soon.

5. John Wolfe Says:
   August 25th, 2010 at 4:01 pm

   autumnforest,

   It’s a shame that Arizona is just too hot for pumpkins to do well, but the positive is you guys have such an incredibly long growing season for plants that don’t mind the heat. Here, we can pretty much grow from late April to October. Our first light freeze usually comes in around the third or fourth week of October.

   The hanging planters will be great at your new place. I’ve even seen upside down hanging tomato plants for sale now, too. I didn’t know you’re planning an eventual move to Portland — that will be an incredibly nice change for you after many years in AZ. Funny you mention Portland, as I was just commenting to ssflipo13 on how much I love the Pacific Northwest, especially Vancouver.

   Glad to have my updates going so you can enjoy what’s growing in the backyard. Keep setting those intentions and moving in their direction and I know you’ll have your own garden in Oregon soon enough!

   Pam,

   Thanks! I love the pumpkins too. I always give them pats and rub them down a little each time I visit the garden. Yeah, I think everything worked out for the best for the turtle. The man I gave her to seemed very kind and enthusiastic about taking her, plus he already has other turtles that live near a pond in his backyard.

   Goldie,

   Thank you so much! I totally appreciate your compliments about the garden. Sometimes I feel a little funny taking credit for what’s growing (even though I planted and watered everything), since nature really does all the hard work… I just do a little encouraging along the way. I’ve sorta been nature’s cheerleader during this process and probably a dorky one at that — imagine Will Ferrell in those old SNL cheer skits.

   You’re totally spot on about all the different lessons a garden can teach, and in a very short concentrated amount of time too. The experience with the garden has really helped to reinforce my preexisting ideas of nature being the most marvelous teacher. You may remember some of those ideas I expressed in entries over at Wind of the Soul.

   As of right now, I definitely would like to grow a garden again next year. I think I’ll expand it and primarily focus on pumpkins and corn. I found some unique varieties of pumpkins in a book, and I’d love to locate their seeds and grow them next summer. And, I’m going to plant the “pumpkin tree” seeds Camile sent me as well.

   Thank you, my friend, for your kind words and for your interest and feedback about all my projects.

   Ethan,

   That it is, but in my mind I like to picture the Log Ride or Water Plume ride … I was always partial to those as a kid. While I’ve enjoyed the experience of growing the garden, it will be nice to finally get those cool temps that later summer starts to bring, and, now that I have a little experience under my belt, I can start planning for next year’s garden. Thanks for watching and commenting.

6. Damian the HalloweeNut Says:
   August 25th, 2010 at 4:33 pm

   It’s been really cool watching the garden grow as Halloween gets closer! Can’t wait to see the Angel of Death!!!

7. Camile Says:
   August 26th, 2010 at 3:18 pm

   John, your pumpkins look divine! It’s neat to see how different the leaves of the plants look between your store bought seeds and the ones you saved. I think you’re going to have 3 very handsome pumpkins there!

   Our garden has not fared so well. We fought the good fight against a round of blight that killed off everybody except our sunflowers, water melons and the pumpkin trees early in the season. We started again from scratch with the vine pumpkins but I just don’t think the plants were well enough established before the Texas heat hit them. We also didn’t get as many cooling rains as we have in past years. I watered just as much but the break in the high temperatures that the rains would have brought were out of my control. It’s my understanding that it pumpkin vines are exposed to too much heat too quickly (prior to putting on fruit) that the vines, in a bid at self preservation, will not put on very many female flowers and I only saw a few very undeveloped girls out there who’s flowers never even opened completely. Poor sweethearts!
   I’m already looking into heat tolerant varieties to try next year and I’ll let you know what I find out.
   I also had the thought that buying pumpkins from local growers would be a good way to lay hands on seeds that are proven in any given climate so we’ll be getting our jack o lanterns from local farmers instead of the big chain grocery stores this year.

   Our pumpkin trees aren’t doing all that well either. They look more like basil. lol! They have nice green leaves but no length to the stalks and no fruit. Oh, well. Just one of those years I guess.

   I’m so glad that your first year gardening worked out so well! It’s very encouraging and we’ve loved seeing it from start to finish!! It’s such an amazing learning process, isn’t it? And for me a good practice of Zen-like patience and the art of letting nature do what nature intends and accepting it as gracefully as I can (and learning which fungicides and blight remedies work and which don’t in humid weather.)

8. John Wolfe Says:
   August 27th, 2010 at 4:57 pm

   Damian,

   Thanks. I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the garden and I’m happy to hear you’re looking forward to the Angel of Death! Speaking of him, I just posted a new update vid today.

   Camile,

   Thank you! I’m always amazed by the variety in the leaves, too. The seeds from our jack-o-lanterns have really come on in the last couple of weeks. In fact, their leaves have grown larger than any of the leaves I’ve seen in the patch throughout the entire summer.

   I’m so sorry to hear what’s been happening with your garden. I’ve had some experience with an unknown factor in mine as well — that’s what happened to two of my tomato plants. They both just ended up having problems and there was nothing visible that I could see causing it, so they may have had some blight, too.

   Thanks for the great info about pumpkins and the heat. You’ve been so helpful about growing gourds and I can’ thank you enough. That’s a great tip I’ll keep in mind for next year. I also think that’s a fabulous idea when it comes to buying from local growers and planting the seeds from those pumpkins. They should definitely be adapted to your climate if their “ancestors” did well there.

   We’ve been hitting the upper 90s (and sometimes one-hundred-degrees) all summer, with only small amounts of rainfall as well. Considering my climate’s probably not that much different than yours (except for the humidity), I’d be more than happy to send you some of the seeds from my guys if you like.

   A big thanks to both you and Kieran for watching and giving me such great tips and kind feedback. I’m so glad to have you both join me for my first journey into gardening. And I totally agree about gardening being a magnificent process for learning about nature. It totally teaches us in an up close and personal manner about the obvious and sometimes more subtle laws of nature. I’m glad you’ve been able to find peace amidst what’s been happening in your garden, Camile, and I so wish you the best for next year!