What do you do with your pumpkins?

[sweeneytoddsrazor]

As above , how does everyone dispose of their pumpkins? I can cut them up and put in the food waste bin but I see a lot of people saying leave for the wildlife. So what wildlife eats them? We regularly have a fox visitor and it hasn't made any attempts to eat them as yet so I guess not foxes.

Yes hedgehogs are sadly massively in decline, a combination of habitat loss and imported diseases have reducded numbers drasically.

At this time of year, especially with our climate getting milder, hedgehogs are especially active. They hiberate through the winter months but in order to do so they need to eat a lot in September - early November to build up their strength for hiberation. Pumpkins are toxic to hedgehogs and is especially dangerous to them just as they go into hibernation so they should never be disposed of in woods or gardens where hedgehogs might be living.

Most councils allow you just to put whole pumpkins on top of/next to your food waste bin if you don't have space to it in the bin. It's probably the best thing to do for both the environment and wildlife :)

Garden waste bin

Our local one has very specific criteria though
If the pumpkin has "entered a kitchen" they can't take it, probably something to do with regulations around domestic food waste or similar
We give ddog the inside (freeze and add a handful to each meal) and the rest goes in the bin
And for whoever asked upthread yes hedgehogs are declining rapidly unfortunately