Composting Pumpkins

Living Green

Can you believe that in the U.S alone over a billion pounds of pumpkins are produced every year?! And who knows how many of those are carved.

So, instead of sending it to the landfill consider composting your jack o'lantern....that's the most 'green' thing you can do with a carved pumpkin.

The How to:

-If you don’t have a compost bin or only a balcony, you can use any plastic container to hold your humus until you start planting next year’s garden.

-Before adding the pumpkin to a compost pile, but sure to remove all the seeds first! Pumpkin seeds are hardy enough to live through the whole composting process. That means, unless you want pumpkins everywhere you put the fresh compost, you may be in for a long summer of weeding!

-If you already have a compost bin or pile, chop up the pumpkin into smaller pieces so decomposition will be faster. (Be sure to remove any candles or wax inside first.)

-Make a 'bed' of leaves and/or shredded newspaper to put the pumpkin on, be sure to save some to put on top of the pumpkin.

-And as time goes on, you can add fruit, veggies, and yard clippings to it....just be sure not to add anything that comes from an animal (meat, bones, fat, etc).


-If you don’t have a compost pile you can bury the whole or diced pumpkin directly into your garden soil. The winter weather cycle and bacteria will likely break it down by spring. (You may end up with a few pumpkin seedlings sprouting if seeds were in the pimpkin when you burried it.) You can cover your compost pile with a black garbage bag to help speed up the decomposition of it.

So let's make the most out of our friendly little jack o'lanterns and add some nutrients to our gardens instead of the landfill.