Halloween fun does not have to stop when the trick-or-treat clock runs out, especially not when one grows a pumpkin patch in their front yard every year.
For the last 25 years, lifetime Magnolia resident Greg Shaw has turned his front yard into a decorative pumpkin patch. From ghosts, skeletons and witches to giant pumpkins, Shaw's front yard at 3707 29th Ave. W. can't be missed.
"It's just fun. The first time I did it, big pumpkins were kind of a novelty," Shaw said. "When I was younger Halloween was a fun day, and now I enjoy growing the [pumpkins] the most."
With the help of fertilizer and giant pumpkin seeds, the pumpkins may grow up to 10 inches a day.
Though many folks show off their decorating skills for the Christmas season, Shaw said he's always liked Halloween.
"I've always enjoyed Halloween. It's exciting when you're younger because it doesn't seem as structured," he said. "Now with this, it's just a good way to become part of a new season."
And Shaw's not the only one who enjoys the outcome of his plantings. Curious neighbors and drivers slow down as they pass Shaw's yard, exclaiming, "those are huge" and "that's incredible."
Apart from more than 100 smaller pumpkins Shaw bought from the grocery store, Shaw grew the rest of the orange and creamy yellow orbs that decorate his lawn. Shaw planted the seeds mid-April using the biggest seeds from last year's pumpkins.
This year, there are a few giant pumpkins, and Shaw estimates the largest weighs around 500 pounds.
When the season ends, Shaw uses a chainsaw to cut up the giant pumpkins before turning them into compost material. Last year, all of the little pumpkins were donated to a food bank to make pumpkin pies.
As for the yard, Shaw said he used to plant a new lawn every year when he had a landscaping business but he hasn't done that for the past couple of years. While Shaw enjoys the looks on people's faces for his "orange" work, he said he doesn't have plans to go all out for Christmas.
"I think I'll just stick with pumpkins," Shaw said.
But Shaw isn't the only one in the neighborhood getting ready for Halloween. Homes throughout Magnolia and Queen Anne have pumpkin displays, kid art stuck in windows and the occasional hinged cardboard skeleton taped to the front door. And some neighbors go all out. The home along West Fulton Street just east of the cemetery atop Queen Anne Hill has a few great gory scenes stationed around the house. Like haunted sentinels atop the porch eave a pumpkin-headed mummy has thrown open its coffin door and to the right, a ghoul draped in black casts doom on any visitors. Out in front of the house a wayward witch met an awful fate, flattened by a telephone pole with her broomstick wedged in. A black cat dangles from the broom's bristles.
Further up at the 2500 block of 10th Avenue West, homeowners have turned their front yard into a graveyard of sorts complete with a writhing corpse, multiple tombstones, ghoulish drapes, a reckless skeleton pirate and a zombie wedding party. It's quite the scene.
And northeast of that home along the 2400 block of Second Avenue West is the Frisch home, which has been transformed into a illuminated nightmare.
"It's all done in the spirit of Halloween," said Kevin Frisch, who with his wife, Margaret, moved into the neighborhood from San Diego last year. In San Diego, the couple was treated to not dozens but literally hundreds of trick-or-treaters (1,017 to be exact - yes he counted them). It was a very big deal and the couple reveled in it. Their house was decorated with lights, ghosts, moving spiders. The home had developed such a reputation as the "it" house, that kids were actually "mini-vanned" over to get the goodies. Kevin was so into it, that he actually calculated the number of visitors and developed a matrix on the computer to assess the amount of candy needed. They had multiple bowls of candy and even cotton-candy-making machines, which they plan to replicate here in Queen Anne.
But it was no free ride. The couple insists that the kids make an effort, to do a trick or act out the character they're dressed as. The better the performance, the more the candy. Any kid who doesn't perform will get "an unsharpened yellow pencil," Margaret Frisch said. "That's the punitive prize," she added with a smile.
"What's been great for us is all the parents and kids checking out our stuff," she said. She said she met about five neighbors she felt she wouldn't have otherwise met had it not been for the display. They told her that Second Avenue West only got about 15 trick-or-treaters last year. Margaret hopes that their bigger-than-life display will inspire other families to get into it and draw more kids.[[In-content Ad]]
