Tomorrow Halloween will be over; the kids will be coming down off of their sugar highs, you’ll be removing spider webs, bats and ghouls from your front yard (don’t forget to save them for next year) and trying to resist eating all their candy. Your pumpkins will be shaking off the festivities by starting to decompose.
Now I too have been guilty of leaving the carved pumpkins on our front stoop until they turn black and collapse and I have to throw them in the trash. But a better plan is to remove any wax or other non-organic material, and then have the kids stomp on them with boots to smash them. Then you can throw them right onto your compost pile. If you don’t have a compost pile, you can just dump them behind a tree or some bushes. The benefit of doing this is that they can provide nutrient rich soil in the spring, and they won’t take up space in landfills or add extra weight (which requires more energy) to dump trucks that haul our trash. Plus, what kid wouldn’t love to put on boots and stomp something to bits?