Don’t Toss That Pumpkin! Easy Ways to Use It After Fall
I love pumpkin season.
Pumpkins on the porch. Pumpkins on the table. Pumpkin decorations everywhere.
Pumpkin spice cake? Absolutely.
Pumpkin spice everything?
Okay, we need to draw the line somewhere. 😂
For me, pumpkins are a little like the unofficial mascot of autumn. They show up when the weather cools down and stick around through Halloween and Thanksgiving.
But eventually the decorations have to come down.
And then what?
Those beautiful pumpkins don’t necessarily have to go straight into the trash.
I don’t grow my own because I simply don’t have enough garden space, but I do buy pumpkins for decorating. And once they’ve finished their decorating duties, we find another use for them—often with a little help from the chickens.
Here are some simple ways to get more from your pumpkins this fall.
1. Let Your Pumpkin Decor Do Double Duty
One reason I like decorating with real pumpkins is that they don’t necessarily become trash when the season ends.
A pumpkin can sit on the porch looking pretty for weeks and still have another purpose afterward—as long as it hasn’t spoiled or been treated with something that makes it unsuitable for food or animals.
That’s a nice change from decorations that get used once and thrown away.
Practical tip: If you hope to cook with your decorative pumpkins later, choose edible varieties and keep them whole and uncarved. Store them somewhere cool and dry and check regularly for soft spots or spoilage.
2. Yes, You Can Make Pumpkin Pie From an Actual Pumpkin
We’re so accustomed to opening a can of pumpkin that it’s easy to forget where it started.
I’ve made homemade pumpkin pie using fresh pumpkin.
It requires a little more work than reaching for the can opener, but it’s fun to make at least once—especially during pumpkin season.
One thing to know is that the pumpkins bred specifically for eating, often called pie or sugar pumpkins, generally give you better flavor and texture than the giant pumpkins grown primarily for carving.
Cook the pumpkin until tender, scoop out the flesh, and purée it for your recipe.
Then comes the important part:
Pie. 🥧
💡 Practical Tip
Fresh pumpkin purée can contain more moisture than canned pumpkin. If your purée seems watery, draining some excess liquid can help when using it in baking recipes.
3. Pumpkin Spice Cake Gets My Vote
If I have to choose between pumpkin-spice-everything and one really good pumpkin dessert?
Give me the cake.
I’ve made pumpkin spice cake, and that’s about my speed when it comes to pumpkin-spice season.
Pumpkin works beautifully in baked goods because it contributes moisture as well as flavor.
Think:
Pumpkin bread.
Muffins.
Pancakes.
Cake.
Cookies.
And, of course, pie.
You don’t need to turn everything in the kitchen orange between September and November.
Pick the pumpkin foods you genuinely enjoy.
That’s much more my style.
4. Don’t Forget About the Seeds
Pumpkin seeds are another part that doesn’t have to go to waste.
I’ve roasted them before, and they’re an easy fall snack.
Clean off the pumpkin pulp, dry the seeds, season them, and roast them until crisp.
These days?
I usually skip that part.
My chickens get them.
Apparently, they are considerably more enthusiastic about pumpkin seeds than I am. 😂
And that’s perfectly fine with me.
5. My Chickens Handle the Pumpkin Cleanup
This is what normally happens to the decorative pumpkins at our house.
Once pumpkin season is over, the chickens get them.
And they love them.
Instead of throwing an intact, usable pumpkin into the garbage, it gets one more purpose.
The chickens get an enrichment activity and a seasonal treat, and I don’t have a sad pumpkin heading straight to the trash.
If you’re feeding pumpkins to backyard chickens, keep it simple: use fresh, sound pumpkin without paint, wax, mold, or other decorative treatments, and treat it as an occasional supplemental food rather than a replacement for their nutritionally complete feed.
💡 Practical Tip
Cutting a pumpkin open makes it much easier for chickens to get started. Mine don’t need much encouragement after that.
6. No Chickens? Compost It
Not everyone has a flock waiting for pumpkin season.
In that case, composting is another excellent ending for an untreated pumpkin.
Pumpkins contain a lot of moisture and break down readily when chopped into smaller pieces. Remove stickers and non-compostable decorations first, then add the pieces to your compost along with enough dry, carbon-rich material such as leaves.
And fall usually gives us plenty of those.
Pumpkin + fallen leaves = a pretty convenient combination.
Instead of taking up space in a landfill, that pumpkin eventually becomes something useful for the garden.
7. What About Freezing or Freeze Drying Pumpkin?
Here’s where I’m going to do something I think is important:
I’m not going to pretend I’ve freeze dried pumpkin when I haven’t.
I haven’t personally freeze dried pumpkin.
Could pumpkin be preserved for later use? Yes.
For example, cooked pumpkin purée can be frozen in useful recipe-size portions. The National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends freezing cooked pumpkin or winter squash as a safe home-preservation option.
Home canning requires more care. Current tested home-canning guidance covers cubed pumpkin or winter squash, not mashed or puréed pumpkin, because safe heat penetration hasn’t been established for the puréed product.
That’s an important example of why we should choose a preservation method based on the food rather than assuming every food can be handled the same way.
💡 Practical Tip
If you have extra cooked pumpkin purée, freezing it in portions sized for your favorite pie, bread, or cake recipe makes it easy to use later.
8. One Pumpkin Can Have Quite a Life
Think about everything one simple pumpkin can do.
It can decorate your porch.
Become part of a fall centerpiece.
Turn into pumpkin pie.
Become pumpkin spice cake.
Give you roasted seeds.
Feed backyard chickens.
Or break down into compost that eventually helps grow something else.
That’s a pretty good run for something many of us normally think of as decoration.
🌿 From My Experience
I think this is one of the things I enjoy most about simple living.
You start looking at things a little differently.
Instead of:
“I’m finished with this. Throw it away.”
You start asking:
“Is there another use for this?”
I’m not going to cook every decorative pumpkin I buy.
I’m definitely not going to turn everything I own into pumpkin spice.
And I haven’t suddenly decided that I need an acre of pumpkins growing in my backyard.
But if my fall decorations can eventually become a treat for my chickens rather than filling the trash?
That’s an easy choice.
❤️ Enjoy Pumpkin Season—Your Way
You don’t have to make homemade pumpkin purée.
You don’t have to roast the seeds.
You don’t have to compost.
You certainly don’t need to put pumpkin spice in everything you eat until December.
Enjoy the parts of the season that make you happy.
Decorate the porch.
Bake the cake.
Make the pie.
Feed the chickens.
And find one more use for that pumpkin before you finally say goodbye to fall.
Because pumpkin season doesn’t need to last forever to be wonderful.
Maybe that’s part of what makes it so special. 🍂
