What You Can Do With Your Jack-O'-Lantern After Halloween Is Over

Carving pumpkins into creative or scary jack-o'-lanterns is a quintessential part of Halloween, and often a family favorite event. Yet, come the end of spooky season, what are you to do with that pumpkin that is now starting to rot on your porch? You may be tempted to just toss it in the trash, but there is actually a much better use of your rotten Halloween decoration — composting!

Getting all the use you can out of your Halloween pumpkin is a great way to do what you can to reduce your carbon footprint. From making delicious dill pickle pumpkin seeds to composting their remains, no part of your pumpkin needs to go to waste. Poor disposal of pumpkins won't make or break the climate, but composting them after Halloween can still help reduce the overall greenhouse footprint from food waste. Not only does composting those pumpkins benefit the environment, but it's also a great way to nourish your garden.

Fortunately, composting your jack-o'-lantern is quite easy and can be completed in a few steps. You'll first want to make sure any aspects of your decorating are removed first, such as candle wax or paint. You don't want any of these inorganic materials mixed in with your pumpkin so take your time removing them. If you have any remaining pumpkin seeds, you'll want to remove these also. Either trash them or use them to grow your own pumpkins for next season.

Now you get to smash your pumpkins into small bits! This can be a lot of fun so feel free to include your kids. Whether you build your own simple compost bin for your pumpkin or choose to compost directly in your garden, breaking the pumpkin down into smaller pieces is important to speed up the decomposition process.

After smashing your pumpkin, you are ready to compost. If composting directly in your garden, you can spread your pumpkin out and cover it with leaves. Choose a relatively sunny area to help speed along the process. If you are using a compost bin, you can simply add your pumpkin bits to your existing compost. Now, you just let time do its thing.