Putting The Garden To Bed/ Contest Is Now Open

Today is the day it officially starts.  I told you about it Saturday, but now the race is on - who can garner the most points and win an original rendering of their favourite subject?

  I propose to draw or paint, for the winner, a portrait of their pet, their favourite flower, building or landscape.   

                              To see some of my work check out: Some of my artwork

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Here is the contest and the rules and it may get a tad tricky so bear with me.

1.  If you are currently a follower, I will give you a baseline five entries. An entry/point/ticket means your name is tossed into a hat.

2.  For every comment (sorry happy faces don't count) you add to my blogs over the next two months, I will give you one more entry.  I know it is kind of like that forced communication mark in high school, where you got marked for commenting in class on other people's reports.  I have no problem resorting to low-brow blackmail to get my chocolate cake and brie!

3. For each new follower I get, who gives your blog credit for finding mine, I will give each of you another three entries.  So every new follower automatically gets three entries.

4. Ten entries to anyone who shamelessly promotes my contest on their blog.  You can take my name in vain to your heart's content. One point, if you somehow link to mine (please let me know if you did, as I might not otherwise see it).

5. Please note I am starting up a new concept on my blog - The Daily Quest.  For every correct answer that I get in my email, one more ticket entry will be yours.

6.  The contest will run from November 1st until December 31st of this year.

7.  The winner will be the person with the most tickets/points/entries as of that last date.

8.  The winner will then make his/her selection of portrait subject and email me a good quality shot of said topic ( one {1} subject only please, I don't wish to paint a gaggle of geese or the entire main street of your hometown).  I will then proceed to capture a likeness on canvas or paper, with my brush or pencil - of course sharing the process via blog in the new year.

9.  As well to make it interesting, I will be making one random draw for each of November and December and that winner will receive a smaller prize.

So let's have some fun together.  I know I'm pumped and looking forward to meeting more people, getting scads of feedback and working on a visual keepsake for someone out there in blogland.

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As always, I weed with religious fervour until the Labour Day weekend, the first of September, and then I get lazy.  I think the weeds have realized this trend, and they lay waiting until yours truly has hung up his hoe, and then they come on like gangbusters.  As you can see, my tidy bed, is not so tidy anymore.  On Saturday, I got out the rototiller and many weeds met their demise, as well as a lot of the spent vegetation left over from the summer harvest.

Before

After

Here it is very roughly tilled.  I probably won't get the tiller out again this fall.  I do intend to go around and collect bagged leaves though over the next few weeks, so I may want to work them in, just so they don't all blow away in the first big wind.

Yesterday, I dug most of the carrot crop.  They were rather magnificent.  The big ones went into a bin of peat moss in the cold room, and the smaller ones are all washed, bagged and in the crisper in the fridge.

There was a pleasant little surprise awaiting me in the garden.  I had planted 20+ Romanesco Veronica plants last spring, and all but one turned out to be plain old broccoli, but as you can see above, one of them was true seed.  We plan to enjoy it in the next few days.  Isn't it just the most unusual looking plant though, kind of like a futuristic evergreen forest, or a Christmas tree plantation on a hill.  And the bonus is that it is also quite delicious.

The Daily Quest

This is a new daily feature on The Musical Gardener blog. Below is a question, or puzzle that will change day by day. Do not use the comment section of the blog for your answer.

Answer to Yesterday's Puzzle: Go For It

Today's Puzzle: Another Easy One (just to get you warmed up)

Whatzit

What it the subject of this photo?

Please respond with your answer to the email below. I apologize but you will have to type my email address in manually (I'm attempting to avoid spammers).

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.