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A Fall Tradition

Posted on Oct. 26, 2006 at 7:33 AM

I really love pumpkins and each Fall we buy several to decorate with. I always felt bad throwing them in the trash when they were no longer wanted as decorations so ... we do something with pumpkins that no one else I know does. Each year when Thanksgiving is past we take all our pumpkins out to our back patio and find a place for them. One year they were all on a bookcase. Last year most of them were by the back door. Then … really creative here … we leave them there! And we go on with life.  What is the point of all this? To see how long the pumpkins will last before they rot and have to be thrown away!

Below is a picture, taken on May 9, 2006, of three of our pumpkins (those are white ones barely peeking in on the sides of the photo) that we bought last Fall. My daughter checked her journal to see if we recorded the final throw away date. I think we forgot. She thinks it was early August, I thought it was late July … close dates anyway.

The pumpkins do some strange things sitting out there. We had a Cinderella pumpkin (big flat squatty brownish orange pumpkin … such a cute pumpkin) that had a place of honor for it’s last days … it was on a little metal table in the center of a sitting area. It grew all kinds of weird knobby things the older it got. I wish we had taken a picture! My number two daughter did cut it up and inspect it before we threw it out.

The pumpkin below did not have all those brownish scratch looking spots when we bought it … they are from age. I just told the girls we need to take more pictures this year as documentation and we must record the final toss date! I do think it is rather neat that pumpkins can last so long outside exposed to the elements, I do live in Arizona and 100* temps start in May. This yearly experiment of ours may seem silly to some but we do homeschool and these are our “Pumpkin Studies”. Do you think this could count as Science?! :)

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Posted by KarenW on Oct. 26, 2006 at 8:09 AM - Link

That's a really cool experiment! I don't know how that would work here when temps stay below freezing for days or weeks at a time. We may try it if we can find some pumpkins.

Now,

Posted by ThoughtfulMom on Oct. 26, 2006 at 8:32 AM - Link

that's a pumpkin trick I'd never heard of. Ours rot faster than that - they barely last two weeks. Those are some hearty pumpkins you get. :)

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Posted by babymakers on Oct. 26, 2006 at 8:58 AM - Link

YES! I would count it as science! As I have said before - Who needs a science book?

Our pumpkins never last that long : )

Posted by BChsMamaof3 on Oct. 26, 2006 at 9:21 AM - Link

In the next town over it is fun after Halloween because tons of people take their pumpkins and set them one after the other down the connector to the highway so there are miles and miles of pumpkins for quite a long time after : )
Your blogger friend,
BChsMamaof3

#4

Posted by Roo on Oct. 26, 2006 at 10:18 AM - Link

Great pumpkin story! Love it!

Roo

Very unique!

Posted by TrainingHearts on Oct. 26, 2006 at 7:11 PM - Link

That was a very good science project. We just might adopt that project and really see how long our pumpkin will stick around.

pumpkins

Posted by tripletsrajoy on Oct. 26, 2006 at 9:18 PM - Link

I like that. I guess I could say the same thing, but unfortunately we don't do it on purpose. We leave them on the front porch until one of us finally gets sick of looking at the rotten things and finally thows them away. They don't last very long here.

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Posted by jengresak on Oct. 29, 2006 at 6:51 PM - Link

That's hilarious! It absolutely counts as science : ) Have a great week!

Came by to visit

Posted by mamma1420 on Oct. 31, 2006 at 8:48 PM - Link

Just wanted to say hi
Jessica

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Posted by foxvalleyfamily on Nov. 1, 2006 at 8:28 AM - Link

Cool! I definitely think that counts as science!
Rats...It also makes me wish I hadn't been so hasty to toss our pumpkins at the first sign of rot!

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Posted by DanielleW on Nov. 3, 2006 at 8:13 AM - Link

That is very unique! I did something similar but I think since it was left out in the elements it rotted much more quickly. I think I threw ours away in March or something. Funny thing, this was the only time we've ever even had a pumpkin at our house.