Pumpkins

[goingbacktothecaves]

AIBU to not buy pumpkins this year , i try to not have any food waste and feel that throwing perfectly good food away after cutting some scary shaped holes in it is really bad for the environment. Surely we should be using the land and water to grow food that will get eaten?

@sanityisamyth perfect! Thank you!

Make pumpkin beer.

Pumpkin juice is nice, too.

We scoop out the inside, either roast ot bury the seeds, make soup, pasties, juice etc Harry-Potter-style and compost the carved pumpkin the day after Halloween.

@GemmaRuby

Please don’t dump your pumpkins in woodlands. The wildlife in woods funnily enough has not evolved to farm and eat pumpkins. They will just rot horribly, look disgusting, attract rats and disrupt the native woodland ecosystem.

Yes, this happens every year in the woods next to our house. People dump their pumpkins all over 'for the squirrels'.

The squirrels don't touch them. They are still there at Christmas, rotting away.

I scoop almost all of the flesh out anyway before carving. Save some seeds for the next year and use the insides for cake, soup etc. I've left them out after for the squirrels but I'm trying to deter them this year so will be cutting up for the compost heap this year instead. Ours didn't take long to rot but we do take out most of the flesh!

Pumpkin chutney is nice, I made that last year

We put our pumpkins out in the woods near our house for wildlife to eat after Halloween. My MIL asks for the guts from inside them to go into soup. Nothing goes to waste in our house, pumpkin wise.

I'm intending to make pumpkin soup and pie with mine (I grew them though, rather than bought them)

I make this cake every year with our carving pumpkin.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/halloween-pumpkin-cake
Once Halloween is done the pumpkin gets filled with bird seed and hung up outside as a bird feeder.

😂 🎃 😂

I didn’t know they were edible tbh. Loads of them are labelled for ornamental use only, do not eat.

Compost them!

Ive done pumpkin picking before

They inedible.

I cut up
And left in the garden for wild
Animals. Then composted remains

@Marelle

I didn’t know they were edible tbh. Loads of them are labelled for ornamental use only, do not eat.

I've never seen this! We get ours from the supermarket (our garden ones are too small this year) except on years when grown our own and they haven't had that on. On a completely separate note I really enjoy it when the supermarkets bring in loads of squash varieties at this time of year, the season goes on longer than Halloween but they always seem to disappear in Nov and I get disappointed 😥

Just when you think you’ve heard it all…..

Eat them then! God you sound joyless. Of all the decorations for all the seasonal festivals, pumpkins are about the best in terms of waste etc.

Last year we couldn't get pumpkins because the shops ran out. We carved watermelons instead, looked great and all of the insides got eaten happily.

All of the primary school children in my area are given a pumpkin each, some large families end up with 4 or 5! There is an annual" posting of pumpkin recipes" on local social media every year!

I carve the flesh out and make pumpkin katzu curry every Halloween

@Marelle

I didn’t know they were edible tbh. Loads of them are labelled for ornamental use only, do not eat.

I always make soup from our ‘carving’ pumpkin - dh and I are still alive and well. I’ve never bought an ordinary orange pumpkin with a ‘do not eat’ label, and I’ve never seen one, either.

@spanieleyes

All of the primary school children in my area are given a pumpkin each, some large families end up with 4 or 5! There is an annual" posting of pumpkin recipes" on local social media every year!

By who? Is there a pumpkin fairy where you are?

Well YANBU as you don’t have to buy one and generally I’m a fan of reducing waste etc.

But… it’s autumn, I’m a Halloween lover and we can’t do October without pumpkins!

Without these little markers of time, the seasons would just blend into one another. Also love bonfire night etc

Why not buy a ceramic pumpkin lantern and use it every year?

You are not being unreasonable at all!

Originally Americans decided that pumpkins were a hallowe'en thing to get rid of a surplus of their harvest of pumpkins at the same time of year.

They are tasteless. YOu can't eat them. I don't get them at all

I know it's fun for kids to carve a face but this could be done in something else.

I'm Irish and old so I remember my mother trying to carve a face in to a turnip and giving up and drawing a face on! ha, so much easier.

But in this part of the world, what's 'local' to us is not pumpkins. Sadly it's turnips.

Bring back turnips. Actually, turnip is nice when it's prepared right. And at least it's clearly savoury.

Years ago I thought I just don't know how to cook pumpkin pie etc but I gave it my all once from an American recipe and it is bland in desserts.

At least with a turnip you know it's savoury, cook it like potato, saute it in garlic butter, roast it. It's delicious.

BRING BACK TURNIPS

I sound like Baldrick now, in my passion for turnips.

@BewareTheBeardedDragon

They are grown locally and the kind pumpkin farmer gives all the children the 2nd grade ones- slightly misshapen or with brown patches in the skin. The fields are FULL of pumpkins at the moment although many have already been picked as we celebrate pumpkin season before Halloween🎃