As I drive throughout the residential neighborhoods in my local geography, I wonder how harvest season morphed into life-size plastic Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons and sharks eating mannequins. Jack O’ lanterns I get. Have you ever been to a pick your own pumpkin patch? At the end of the season, go back to that same pumpkin patch and you will see plenty left on the ground. Like others in the Cucurbita genus, pumpkins are prolific. These vining bushes are known for producing squash that range from the size of a fist to ones weighing in over a ton. Given that pumpkin only provides 30 calories per cup, it isn’t a food that our ancestors would have stored past capacity.
So, what did they do with all of those extra pumpkins they did not want to save?
They carved Jack O’ lanterns! When the tradition first began it wasn’t for porch decorations in residential neighborhoods to alert kids that candy would be handed out if they showed up in costume and knocking on the door. Originally, pumpkins, and also turnips and beets, were carved with symbols toward off evil spirits during the harvest. Those spooky faces represent nefarious denizens of the underworld, such as ghosts and one particular devil known as Stingy Jack, the starring character in an Irish folk tale. When the Scots Irish settled in America, they brought with them their superstitions and lore. Now we all have carved pumpkins sitting on our porches that will eventually grow fungi hair and turn gooey.
Not all pumpkins and carved Jack O’ lanterns fall victim to that fate. Pumpkins are a favorite food for animals, both wildlife and livestock. I have a few friends who love to decorate their porches with an assortment of winter squash in varying sizes and shapes, but once the fall decorations get exchanged for the snowman and Santas, I get to haul away an assortment of treats for the animals. It is hilarious to watch four-legged soccer players chase a big orange ball until somebody gets enough traction to bite into it and then it becomes a piñata with everyone scrambling for a bite. Rural residents or those who live near the mountains contend with deer and sometimes bears, breaking into their version of Halloween candy. Suburban and urban squirrels like to add scars to the faces of triangle eyes and peg-tooth smiles.
It’s not only the furry friends who are drawn to the delicious orange flesh of pumpkins. Poultry will make short work of them, and if a flock of wild turkeys discovers a jack-o’-lantern on the porch, it won’t be there for long.
One year, a vegetable grower friend of mine accepted a large load of unsold pumpkins from a local grocery store. The intent was to use them in the compost pile, however, the following year after amending their soil with compost, instead of growing their intended crops, they ended up unexpectedly with a large pumpkin patch.
There is something satisfying about carving a beautiful pumpkin for Halloween, but I think I will hold off and save mine for Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.