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| 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.
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| unbaked pumpkin pies, ready for oven |
They were made into pies with homemade crusts[ raw pies pictured here before baking:
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| 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.
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| Roasted pumpkin seeds |
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| 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.
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| Compost is filled in autumn |
Later after I cut back the daisy mums that had enlivened the fall garden!
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| 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.
