How to prolong the life of a carved pumpkin

Have you ever carved a pumpkin and the next day it was a wilted mess and you couldn’t hardly tell what you had carved in it anymore? Well, all your pumpkin needs is a cool bath. We blow up the kiddie pool to soak our pumpkins twice a day for an hour or two at a time. When you take them out to dry, you need to put them upside down so that the water completely runs out. Otherwise the water will pool in the bottom of the pumpkin and create a perfect habitat for mildew. Mildew=disgusting, smelly, slimy pumpkins. There’s nothing worse than that in my opinion.

We add a little bleach (or chlorine in our case) to the water to prevent mildew and let them soak up the water for a few hours. When you get them out they will be as good as new again.

Soaking the pumpkins isn’t a permanent fix and the pumpkins only last a maximum 3-5 days depending on the outside temperature, but it prolongs the life of your pumpkin tremendously.

If you live in St. George, Utah, send me an e-mail, and I will give you my address so you can come check out the display on Halloween night. 🙂 If you missed the 2010 pumpkins, the 2011 carvings and the 2012 pumpkins , you better go check them out.

As you can see, we are pumpkin freaks. Ha!  Our kids LOVE this tradition and it’s really fun for us to display the pumpkins each year. This year will be our 8th year! Our neighbors love it, and we have hundreds of people come to see the pumpkins.

If you need some pumpkin carving tips and tricks, stay tuned for a post coming up this week, or you can check out our pumpkin carving 101 post. 

This post has been updated from it’s original post date from 2011.