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Can you eat Halloween pumpkins ? It seems so wasteful to get disembarrass of this gargantuan vegetable just because October 31st is done . Although the resolution is yes , you may not want to . We excuse why .

I also have someno - carve pick for creating A-one cute pumpkin citizenry here .

Painted Halloween pumpkins.

Making Use of Pumpkins After Halloween

While they can be eat , the mountain - produced Halloween pumpkins found at grocery store are spawn to be ornament and do not have good flavor or texture .

To avoid waste , chop up them up and put them in thecompostafter October 31st .

You could also donate them to a local farmer for their goats , sheep , buck , pigs , or poulet to savour .

Painted Halloween pumpkin with owl decoration.

The seeds are edible and best roasted ( see instruction below ) .

Halloween is a huge business in much of the world . In the U.S. alone it ’s figure that $ 9 billion will be expend on Halloween this year , break open almost equally between costume , decoration and candy . All on an result that really just live a few hr , one night a yr .

Halloween Fun Brings Holiday Waste

Some of those laurel wreath and costume will be used again in succeeding years , but many wo n’t . And the millions of pumpkins that are sell every twelvemonth for Halloween and carved into creative lanterns will be dispose of one fashion or another in the first few days of November .

get ’s look at some options to avoid sending this mass of Cucurbita pepo to landfills and discover out whether they could stop up on your dinner party plate alternatively .

Related : Halloween Costume Ideas With Garden & Nature theme

Orange pumpkin.

Can I Eat my Halloween Pumpkin?

In inadequate , yes , but you in all likelihood do n’t desire to .

How edible they are depends on what kind of autumn pumpkin you bought , what you did with it ( did you already carve it ? ) , and your taste roof of the mouth .

The mass - produced standard orange pumpkins sold for   Halloween have been bred and uprise as decorations , not as food and not for flavor . That does n’t mean they are n’t eatable , but it may imply you ’re not going to enjoy it .

Raw squash seeds ready for roasting.

If you carve it and had it sitting outdoors for days , it wo n’t just taste unsavory but it may also be contaminate .

If it ’s not too recent , this has fun ideas forno - carve pumpkin decoration .

Cooking Halloween Pumpkins

The suggestions you ’ll hear for misrepresent decorative Halloween pumpkins usually demand move out and buying a good deal of other element — sugar and spiciness , vegetable , sometimes meat — in the hope that something can be made from all of this will make the Halloween pumpkin more palatable . Kind of like drowning a dreaded vegetable in ketchup or butter and salt to avoid taste it . Or turning it into a dessert dripping in lettuce and call it a treat .

A tried - and - on-key pumpkin or squash intended for cooking is a much better stake for a delicious soup or Proto-Indo European .

That said , if you ’re driven to eat your Halloween Cucurbita pepo , and it ’s still fresh , you could figure out a agency to do it . There ’s lots of recipes online .

Fall Garden Checklist

But if you ’re look to feed and enjoy pumpkin , there are much more flavorful choice than I rise as medal . You could even grow your own heirloom varieties for next twelvemonth .

Hello, Compost Pile

Whether you eat some of the pumpkin or not , the cadaver can go into acompost pile , and that ’s a great exercise for them . The organic cloth from the Cucurbita pepo will emphatically gain your garden .

Smashing your pumpkin before put it in the compost pile — or , less dramatically , cutting it up — will speed up the process a second . And , although most Cucurbita pepo are neither green nor dark-brown in appearance , for compost purpose they are ‘ greens ’ , allow for atomic number 7 to your compost bin .

Free Pumpkins Next Year

Pumpkins can self - sow their seeds for free industrial plant next yr if conditions are right .

twelvemonth ago , I buy a bunch of cosmetic pumpkins and gourds that are still re - growing today .

At the end of each fall , I toss them in a garden seam . By the time spring arrives , they have rot , and some always self - seeded player , growing new I for the coming fall . It ’s the most sweat - free means to get free autumn pumpkin yr after year .

Halloween pumpkins.

Feed the Critters

If you have critters , you experience goats , sheep , knight , pig , and chickens will also bolt up your pumpkins unless they ’re picky eaters .

So , do n’t say we did n’t admonish you about the penchant , but if you do end up run through your autumn pumpkin , we go for it ’s spooktacular .

How To Roast Squash & Pumpkin Seeds

Seeds from wintertime squashes let in Halloween pumpkins are edible and best after roasting in the oven .

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Fall Garden Checklist

Indian file provide a handy checklist sorted by precedency and best timing .

~Melissathe Empress of Dirt ♛