Tips to Preserve Your Pumpkin Through Halloween

You’ve gone to the pumpkin patch and your kids have picked the perfect pumpkin—now how do you preserve your pumpkin and keep it fresh and rot-free until Halloween?

Here are a few tips to make sure the pumpkin is (hopefully!) still here on October 31:

• Delay carving for as long as possible. Once a pumpkin becomes a Jack O’Lantern, its days are numbered.
• Wash and dry the pumpkin thoroughly before and after carving—a clean pumpkin is less likely to become a moldy pumpkin. Make sure to wash inside and outside, as well as along all the cut areas.
• Give the pumpkin a bleach and water bath or spray. Use about 1 tablespoon of bleach per quart of water, and make sure the solution covers both inside and outside, and any cut areas.
• Rub all of the cut surfaces of the pumpkin with Vaseline to prevent them from drying out.
• If possible, have your Jack O’Lantern spend as much time as possible in the refrigerator—this is the best way to prevent decay. Also, I realize, it is a total hassle.
• Do not put the pumpkin in the freezer. The extreme cold can cause the pumpkin to crack and dry-out.
• Use Pumpkin Fresh, a commercial spray-on pumpkin preserver, which is available in stores and works well to prevent mold and decay.

And last, if your pumpkin will be residing outdoors make sure it doesn’t make a meal for squirrels and neighborhood dogs. Add a few drops of Tabasco sauce to the Vaseline to create a natural, and effective, repellent. Hairspray and acrylic finish spray works well too, and should keep wanna-be pumpkin diners away.

What have you found works best to keep a jack-o’-lantern shining all month long?