4 Easy Halloween Decorations for Gardeners

Photo Credit

Pixabay

Make a Haunting Halloween Scene With These Easy Crafts!

The Editors

March 4, 2023

Halloween is on the horizon! You’ve got the candy for trick-or-treaters ready to go. But, as you glance across the street at the neighbor’s decked-out haunted house, you realize that your own Halloween decor is perhaps a bit lacking. Not to worry! Here are a few simple decorations that will improve your Halloween scene!

4 Easy Halloween Decorations for Gardeners

Give trick-or-treaters the heebie-jeebies with these inexpensive and easy Halloween crafts, then let us know in the comments about your favorite homemade Halloween decor!

Ghosts of Tomatoes Past

Everyone knows to watch out for vengeful spirits on Halloween night, but does anyone ever expect vegetable spirits? Probably not! It’s time to get one last use out of those tomato cages before storing them for the off-season. We’re going to make them into ghostly lawn ornaments:

Gather up your tomato cages, some old white sheets, a plastic bag of fallen leaves, black construction paper, safety pins, clothespins, and scissors.
Cut out a set of ghostly eyes and a mouth from the black paper for each ghost you want to make. Then, use safety-pins to attach a set of eyes and a mouth to the middle of each sheet.
Pick out a few spots on your lawn and stick the tomato cages firmly into the ground. Place a bag of fallen leaves on top of the cage (to act as a head), then drape the sheets over the cages so that the ghost faces forward.
Finally, use clothespins to secure the sheets to the cages. This will make sure that your ghosts billow in the wind but don’t blow away.
Optional: Attach glow sticks or Christmas lights to the inside of your tomato cages to make the ghosts glow!

Tomato cage ghost! Photo by Catherine Boeckmann. Photo by Catherine Boeckmann

Disembodied Glowing Eyes

This Halloween decoration has been making the rounds on the Web for the past few years and is great way to add a spooky element to your entryway. Here’s how to make your own pair of disembodied glowing eyes:

You’ll need the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper, scissors (or a utility knife), duct tape, some string, a pencil, and a glow stick.
Draw a pair of creepy-looking eyes on the cardboard tube. (Since you’re going to cut them out, the eyes shouldn’t be too detailed, but it should be obvious from the silhouette that they’re eyes!)
Cut out the eyes and tape one end of the tube shut with the duct tape.
Attach the string to the tube so that it can be hung from a branch.
When darkness falls, light up the glow stick and stick it into the tube, then tape over the open end of the tube.
Hang the tube in a bush, from a branch, or set it in a stone wall and voila! Disembodied glowing eyes!

For a better effect, make several of these tubes to hang in various spots—perhaps hide a few in your garden, too.

Photo by Diane Burnett

The Haunted Wheelbarrow

Want to trick your kids into doing yard work and make a cool Halloween decoration at the same time? Well, the haunted wheelbarrow is for you:

You’ll need a wheelbarrow, an old, long-sleeved shirt, a pair of gloves, safety pins, a pile of leaves (or newspaper), and a jack-o-lantern.
Fill the gloves with leaves or crumpled newspaper and attach them to the sleeves of the shirt using the safety pins. Then, fill up the shirt sleeves to the shoulders, leaving the body of the shirt empty.
Next, lay the shirt in the wheelbarrow and cover most of it with leaves, letting the arms and hands stick out.
Finally, place your jack-o-lantern in the wheelbarrow, arranging it so that it looks like a pumpkin head and two arms are emerging from the wheelbarrow!

Pretty spooky! Who knows what else could be lurking under those leaves? (And who dares to find out?)

wheelbarrow with leaves

The Classic Scarecrow

This decoration pretty much speaks for itself. (Hopefully not literally, as that would be much scarier than intended.) A scarecrow is always an effective decoration for Halloween—especially when the trick-or-treaters can’t be 100% sure whether it’s actually a scarecrow or someone dressed as a scarecrow.

First, raid your closet for some old clothes. You’ll want a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, gloves, boots, and a hat (optional).
Unless you’re going for the “headless horseman” theme, your scarecrow will need a head. An old pillowcase stuffed with newspaper, a jack-o-lantern, or a melon all work well as a scarecrow’s noggin.
Stuff the clothes with straw or hay to give your scarecrow some mass. If you don’t have straw or hay on hand, you can use fallen leaves (dry ones, preferably), grass clippings, or even crumpled newspaper.
Once your scarecrow is sufficiently stuffed, “stitch” the clothes together using safety pins to make sure that none of the stuffing falls out.
Now, find a place to put your scarecrow. Should he be stargazing in a beach chair on the lawn? Or seated serenely on your porch with a bowl of candy in hand? It’s up to you!

Scarecrow