DIY Life

At my house, we really try our best to live in an environmentally friendly way, for our health and the Earth's. We eat local, fresh food as much as we can, we never use chemicals on our lawn or plants, we don't clean the house with chemicals, and we have quite the raging compost pile.

It seems that we got a bit overzealous with the composting, in fact. Last fall, after carving a stunning Jack-o-lantern, we responsibly dumped the innards of the pumpkin into our composter.

Throughout the autumn, we had several pumpkins displayed on our walkway and stoop. When it was time to put up the Christmas decorations, we plopped the pumpkins in the composter. Follow me after the break; I'm going somewhere with this...

This spring, we were graced with rich, dark, fertile compost, which we used in all of our flower planters, and in every new hole we dug to plant new perennials. Over a month later, our yard is flourishing: the perennials are strong and blooming, the annuals are ripe with blossoms, and the new bushes have taken as if they were always in our yard. However...

We are weeding more than our fair share of baby pumpkin plants. Yes, these little seedlings have somehow made it through the composting process, and are sprouting through the soil, yearning to experience the sun like the plants they are supposed to be fertilizing.

When we saw what was happening, my husband tried to dig out what he could of the remaining pumpkin guts from the composter, and dumped them in a remote part of our yard. Yes, you guessed it. We are now growing a contender in the World's Largest Pumpkin contest, right down by our backyard stream.

The moral of this story? Don't make Halloween compost. You can throw away your pumpkin guts and still be environmentally aware. Happy composting!