Preserving your Pumpkin

Here are preservation tips:

1) Vaseline: who would have ever thought that this slippery stuff would be the answer? Simply carve your pumpkin using scary pumpkin stencils and then take a generous scoop of Vaseline and line the entire pumpkin with the gel. Vaseline helps the inside flesh from dehydration. Don’t forget to cover the areas where you cut! This has been tested and the average life of a carved pumpkin is 9 days.

2) White Glue: I would have thought this one would have made a pumpkin hold together forever but it’s not true. White Glue has been tested and on average the carved pumpkin using scary pumpkin stencils lasted an average of 6 days. Simply cover the inside of the carved pumpkin with white glue found at your local hardware or craft store. The white glue is intended to dry and seal the pumpkin. Creating a barrier block to preserve the pumpkin’s inside from dehydrating.

3) Bleach: The 10 day solution we found effective…although don’t put your pumpkin anywhere that don’t want the color to bleach out of! We found a nice white patch on our driveway when we moved our pumpkin. Remember to watch where your pumpkin sits using this technique and put a plastic dish below if you are worried about what bleach can do. For bleaching, simply carve your pumpkin using a scary pumpkin stencil and then soak the pumpkin in a pail of bleach solution (1 tsp. bleach/gallon water) for 8 hours. Unfortunately this preservation option requires some maintenance. Every day you will be required to spray the insides of your pumpkin with a mild bleach solution. Please be cautious not to drop any solution on clothing. This method hydrates your pumpkin on a daily basis and the bleach is an antimicrobial.

4) Using an antifungal solution such as Pumpkin Fresh was the best solution but again required daily maintenance. Pumpkin Fresh contains water, sodium tetraborate decahydrate (borax), and sodium benzoate (a preservative and fungicide). This option made our funny pumpkin last for 14 days! Make sure you follow directions on the Pumpkin Fresh label.

5) Refrigerator: well this seems to work well if you only have one pumpkin but if your house is like ours than this is not a good option. We would have to buy 10 refrigerators in order to hold all our pumpkins. We carved 12 pumpkins this year! We used stencils for the kids from their beginner stencils and my husband and I had a contest using the advanced stencils to see who’s was best. After that the neighbourhoods’ attention caused it to be a nightly challenge. 12 pumpkins later the porch was a masterpiece! Bringing 12 pumpkins in everyday for refrigerator time was not going to work….lol….where do you put all the food when the pumpkins are in the fridge?