Spring in South East Queensland lasted for all of a fortnight and then we pounced straight into Summer, evening storms and all.
The tomato plants have revelled in the heat and humidity and I have no doubt that the bandicoots that frolic in the vege bed at night will also be prone to acidic disorders from over indulging. The freezer is full of pasta sauce, a little heavy on the chilli and garlic apparently, and I’m now moving on to tomato chutney production. Not that I eat chutney but I can’t handle food waste. Blame the Depression parents who wouldn’t let us kids leave the table until the plates were clean.
The good news is that I will pull the remaining plants out on the weekend (before sunrise). The bad news is that means no tomatoes for summer salads and I’ll probably have to sell a kidney to afford them for Christmas Lunch.
Talking of waste, Australia has collectively moved away from single use plastics recently. Well done! So please explain somebody, anybody, why the shops are all full of plastic pumpkins. Crappy, cheap plastic pumpkins from China.
1. Why is Halloween becoming such a big deal in Australia?
2. Why is it that freight from China has been delayed since Covid but plastic pumpkins arrive in time for the end of October?
3. If children under 12 are not allowed to walk to school without parental supervision why are they allowed to go trick or treating? I’m not even going to mention the legalities of nazi teachers checking the contents of lunchboxes. I’m too old to open that Pandora’s Box.
4. If we really must instigate this Halloween business, how about next year we all plant some pumpkin seeds and harness our own food source?
So, you’ve figured that I don’t give a rats. Instead, and weather permitting, I plan on a much more appropriate celebration. Yep, a reenactment of the charge at Beersheba at the Laidley Pioneer Village. Entry is by donation.
Never heard of Beersheba?
On 31 October 1917, during World War 1, Australia’s Desert Mounted Corps led the famous charge of Beersheba by the 4th Light Horse Brigade, probably one of the most stunning victories in any battle or war in Australian history. This charge saw 800 Australian horsemen gallop their horses across three miles of open desert, through the Turkish defences, to win the precious wells of Beersheba.
The victory by the Australian horsemen, under the command of Lieutenant General Harry Chauvel against the Turks, was the beginning of a successful Australian campaign that led to the collapse of the Turkish Ottoman empire and turned the tide of war in the Middle East.
And I wont be watching anything starring Jamie Lee Curtis either. It’s the 1980’s Australian flick, The Lighthorsemen, or nothing. Forget the insipid romance between a young Sigrid Thornton and Peter Phelps before he got paunchy, it is a beaut little story and a reminder of old fashioned Aussie larrikins.
It would be totally hypocritical of me to wish you all Happy Halloween though I do hope you all play safely and that there are no chipped teeth from all those boiled lollies. I’ll be at Laidley – yee haa.
ADD TO 2022 TO DO LIST :
Instigate a community pumpkin growing plan and eradicate all plastic pumpkins.
Brizzy Mays Books and Bruschetta 
Hehe! Now I know where the plastic pumpkins went! We aren’t doing the Halloween hoopla here either. Sparky just pulled out his tomatoes this last week. His looked much worse than yours (and they were still producing)! He wants to get every last tomato possible. Though I understand the extreme surplus – I was prepared to make dried tomatoes but Sparky managed to eat most and gave the remainder to his parents…
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How six little plants can be so prolific I just don’t understand. Friends and neighbours have had their share as has the local Mens Shed and a bucket loadwent to the local Op Shop out of desperation yesterday. ThinkI can grow mint ? Or coriander? Not a chance in Hell!
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Oh those tomatoes looks so good to me! One of my favorite foods. Halloween is getting to be a big deal here, too. Lots of decorations and tons of candy are given out. I really enjoyed Halloween as kid. These days, I have mixed feelings about it all. I’m always glad to move on to our Thanksgiving holiday where we think of all our blessings.
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I’ve never been a big tomato fan though those grown at home and eaten fresh out of the garden are certainly full of flavour.
Have a beaut day:)
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Wow so impressed with the tomato harvest. I’ve managed a handful, but they ooze with flavour. I’ll back you with the halloween sentiments, more American imported rubbish to make us buy more unnecessary stuff, ie plastic pumpkins…
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My next issue will be passionfruit. The freezer is still full of pulp from earlier in the year and I sold over 20 seedlings as a fundraiser for Wounded Heroes. Enjoy your weekend : it looks like it’s going to be a stinker.
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Excellent point about the plastic decorations and other cheap plastics consumed throughout the year. We don’t do Halloween, but even when it comes to Christmas we prefer to invest in good quality items that can be reused over and over again and become part of a family collection. We were a little late planting our tomatoes but just noticed this morning the first little fruits.
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My xmas tree still gets covered in the decorations my daughters made in kindy thirty plus years ago. Pleased the toms are performing š š š š
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I don’t understand the obsession with Halloween either…seems to me like an unnecessary cultural import from the USA. Our supermarket shelves are groaning with oversize pumpkins right now, and while these monstrous vegetables are preferable to the plastic variety that you describe, I do wonder how many people actually eat the flesh. Pumpkins are for pies, not just for Halloween, in my humble opinion š.
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As a child my Depression-era parents would not allow us to leave the table until the dinner plates were scraped clean. Sat there once looking for an hour looking at a mountain of mashed pumpkin. Yuk. As a half decent cook I now appreciate pumpkin: pumpkin lasagne, pumpkin gnocchi, and pumpkin chips.MyDad used to love his pumpkin pies….
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