After - Thanksgiving Pumpkins

Big old pumpkins on the side steps

The day after Halloween I gathered 3 huge pumpkins from the curbs in the neighborhood, and enjoyed them through Thanksgiving as decor.

unbaked pumpkin pies, ready for oven

They were made into pies with homemade crusts[ raw pies pictured here before baking:

the seeds were salted and baked 

I washed the pulp from the seeds, salted them with a Tablespoon of kosher salt per pan and baked them at 300 degrees F for 30 minutes, stirred them and baked for 10 more minutes.

Roasted pumpkin seeds 

pumpkins tossed on top of compost

Next, the shells went into my little red Corona wheelbarrow on the way to the compost pile.

We made a tidy compost pile by folding 2 sheets of concrete reinforcing grid into L-shapes and creating a square.

Compost is filled in autumn

Later after I cut back the daisy mums that had enlivened the fall garden!

Pink and yellow daisy mums, Nov. 2012

Those mums had looked like this  during November:

Both the pumpkin shells and the mums will recycle minerals and nutrients back into the garden in the form of compost.