Halloween, fires & Fall garden

Keep doing the things that make you live in the moment. Have a fire with friends, listen to gothic bluegrass music on Halloween 🎻🎃 , grow lime trees on your porch, stare at the moon🌙🍂 🍁 

Sunrise 7:45AM October 25, 2025

November 1st 8:44PM

Yellow & orange leaves

I collected the remaining tomatoes, peppers and Limes from the plants growing in the apartment. 

Purple tomatoes & Lime Harvest from porch garden

The Ever blooming Cactus 

Cactus blooming, against the Bird of Paradise plant

Harvesting Pears in the food forest & Fall Holiday festivities

October was a good month for pears! I could have harvested nearly 70 lbs of pears if I had been diligent; but I was not able to harvest but maybe 16 lbs of pears.

 I wish I could have preserved them all, but ultimately they rotted quick and I cannot always get to my food forest property. 

At the moment, I have some potted plants in my apartment garden. I'm growing lettuce, cilantro, kale and radish in pots. I take some clippings as needed. 

And of course we cannot forget about persimmons this time of year. They are harvested after a frost, usually the first or second frost of the season. Here, I have picked a handful to munch on--or should I say suck on. These are the old fashioned persimmons that can be grown in zone 6, so they are quite small but the seeds are large. When you eat these, you kind of have to suck around the seeds to get the most out of the fruit. This particular variety I have in my hand taste like an orancy icy--that's the best way I can describe it.

I have also been cleaning up my tropical indoor plants. They are adjusting to the Fall weather and changes. I have been dusting them, adding soil, watering sparingly, and making sure they are pruned/cleaned up. 

My christmas cacti are blooming this time of year as well.

During this season, I tend to be allured by the Fall garden, colors and decor. It is sad to see plants die, but I like the festivities. For Halloween, I dressed up at my different jobs and snapped a photo of myself as a farmer zombie and a crazy cat lady. And I also snapped a photo of a cool Halloween decoration I came across; and myself (my head) with zombies at Wicked World scaregrounds.

And once you have hit one holiday, we're into the next...I started making crafts for decembers holidays. Here, the family and I made winter gnomes.

Fall scenes for a Fall Queen

Some of the remaining gourds I harvested from the garden...

Carved pumpkins and made a spooky bat and witch for festivities...

I made some bat wings for my little man...

And, snapped a shot of my grandmas beautifully displayed fall scene. There is oranges and reds far as the eye can see from the mountains to the yards...

Frost protection for Fall garden & Pumpkin decor

On this Hallows eve, I worked a bit in the garden. It is supposed to drop to 25 degrees F this weekend. So, I arranged water piping over the broccoli, cauliflower, kale plants. Then laid garden canvas over each. 

At my other garden, I did the same--covering thr kale, turnip, basil, cilantro, strawberries, radishes, and flowers. 

There are many ways to cover and protect plants from the cold and frost. What methods do you use? I have tried plastic jugs, jars, and plastic sheeting, and that's usually too harsh for plants because they scorch from the excessive heat. Cloth is usually the best! 

As these nights get colder, I've noticed bugs warming themselves in the carved pumpkins I've lit. Slugs, especially, have taken advantage of the little fires in the pumpkins. 

Did you carve pumpkins? Is that a tradition for you? For me, carving pumpkins are symbolic, and artistic. It is a favorite past time of mine. Pumpkins are a symbol of warmth, stability, plentiful, wholesome. To use these as nature's own little lanterns, makes me feel like I'm warding off the bad, the negative energy. This doesn't mean that that's what pumpkins are doing; but, that's the feeling I get.

Figs, Pears, raspberries, tomato harvest Fall 2016