Supermarket shelves are full of pumpkins ready to be carved and make their way to gardens, porches, and windowsills across the region.

But what to do with the spent pumpkins when Halloween is over?

Each year, well-meaning social media posts circulate that encourage people to leave pumpkins in the woods for wildlife to eat. But pumpkins are not natural to woodlands and can make some animals very poorly, such as our declining population of hedgehogs. Decomposing food waste can also attract pests and spread disease. 

 Instead, Forestry England recommends getting creative in the kitchen to use up Halloween pumpkins or recycle them at home. 

Kate Wollen, Area Ecologist for Forestry England says:  “We see many posts on social media encouraging people to leave pumpkins in the woods for wildlife to eat, but please do not do this. Pumpkins are not natural to the woodland and while some wildlife may enjoy a tasty snack it can make others, such as hedgehogs, very poorly. 

“Feeding pumpkins, or any other food in the forest, to birds, foxes, badgers, deer, and boar can make them unwell and can spread disease.  Feeding boar kitchen scraps, like pumpkins, is illegal and could risk introducing diseases such as African Swine Fever. 

“Pumpkins are also often decorated and have things such as candles in them. Animals eating the pumpkins could then eat a foreign object and this could kill them.” 

To protect our forest wildlife and to help reduce food waste, Kate suggests using the flesh to make a delicious pumpkin soup or adding your discarded pumpkin waste to your compost bin to make a rich soil amendment for next year’s vegetable garden. 

Kate continues:  “There are lots of great ways to use your pumpkin after Halloween at home, and my favourites are to use the flesh to make a hearty soup, or to add to my compost. They are 90% water so are a great composting material, adding a great source of nitrogen and moisture to my compost bin each year.”