Ask Mavis: Free Rooster, Halloween Recipes, Pumpkin Identification and More

It’s that time again. You ask, and I pretend to know things and answer your burning questions. It really is so much fun to open my inbox and see the wide variety of questions you guys have. Reminds me that my readers are so diverse and pretty dang awesome. So keep those questions coming and I’ll keep racking my brain for answers. As always, please pipe up if you have any input or are knowledgeable when it comes to any of the following questions:

This summer I sold my home and bought another one! This new home came with a lovely garden. We have only been here 3 weeks. I have been picking tomatoes, white raspberries, apples, pears, cucumbers {interesting varieties}, and lots of summer squash. Needless to say, it has been busy, but what fun it is to reap the benefits of someone else’s hard work! I am wondering if you know any good squash identification websites.

There are at least 40 pumpkins in several varieties here. Some are absolutely huge and a light color. Others are light green Hubbard color, but shaped like pumpkins. There are standard orange ones and that pretty Cinderella shaped kind, and some that are hard to describe. I have been searching through some pictures I found on a google search without much luck. Any suggestions?

~Vanessa

I know just where you can look: seed catalogs!  This would probably be your best bet as seed catalogs provide pictures and descriptions {and almost all of them are online!}. Hope that helps! Your built-in garden sounds AMAZING!!

Hello there! Would you happen to know a farm or a family in Gig Harborthat would be interested in rehoming our 5 month old rooster? We bought 6 chicks from Wilco last May and one of them turned out to be a rooster. He started crowing in the morning and we can have them in our neighborhood as our association will go berserk! Help! 🙁

~Ria

Well I’m throwing it up here just in case we find a taker. By the way – I will never buy chicks from Wilco again. Mrs. Hillbilly and I have both ended up with Roo’s {her once, me TWICE} when the chickens were supposed to be sexed. In the past I have have ordered from MyPetChicken.com {3 times} and always ended up with girls.

Hello Mavis, I absolutely love your blog, been following it for a quite a while and learned a lot. And Lucy is adorable 🙂 To keep things short, I have a question about mulch.

It is the first year that I have tried mulching the raised beds with straw, and now that the season is coming to an end (did not plan for a winter garden this year), I do not know what to do with it when I clean up the garden. Should I leave it in place, should I throw in the compost bin? Does is harbor disease? What does your experience say? Greetings from Europe!

~Susan

I LOVE Europe! Thanks for following all the way from over the pond. As far as your questions, straw is a great source of mulching, especially when it comes to end of season clean up. Straw makes an excellent soil amendment when tilled into it at the end of your growing season. No need to toss it, just mix it up with your soil and you’re good to go. No need to worry about diseases or anything!

Hello Mavis, Love your blog! For the past couple of months I have been making the no-knead dutch oven bread. Yummo! If I’m not careful, I could eat the entire thing in one sitting. Soooo good. My problem comes when it is time to cut the loaf. Any suggestions/tips to get the round ball of goodness cut into nice even slices (without the crumbs going everywhere?) I have this dream that one day I’ll be able to use the slices for a sandwich.

~Jeannine

Isn’t that bread addicting?! The easiest thing to do is buy an inexpensive electric knife with a serrated blade. You can normally find them for around $10 {or thrift stores seem to carry these often}. This will give you the best crumb-free slices I’ve found. If you don’t want to buy one of those, invest in a really sharp serrated knife and then saw back and forth carefully without pressing down at all. Much more crumbs this way, but if you have a high quality knife, you’ll eliminate some of the mess and get much better slices!

Regarding “keeping pasta and rice bug free“: Do the bay leaves have to be fresh or do dried ones do the trick as well

~Chris

I’ve always used a drier leaf, but I suspect either would work just fine. Evil weevils be gone!

I’m throwing a Halloween party this year. Any great tips for me?

~Charlotte

As a matter of fact, I have all sorts of great crafts and recipes that will be perfect for any Halloween party. Check out this Halloween Recipe and Kids Crafts Roundup.

Have a question for me? Submit them HERE and I’ll try to answer them.

~Mavis