Every November I’d stare at the carved pumpkin on the porch, now sagging and gray, and wonder what on earth to do with it. Into the trash it went, wrapped in a bag I felt vaguely guilty about.

Pumpkins are food. There are better ways to let them go.

The options, from best to okay

1. Compost it. Break the pumpkin into chunks so it breaks down faster, and pull out any candles or paint first. In a few months it’s soil.
2. Feed the wildlife. Set pieces out for squirrels and birds, but skip it if your pumpkin had candle wax or glitter in it.
3. Roast the seeds. Even a carved pumpkin usually still has usable seeds inside. Rinse, toss with oil and salt, and roast at 350 for about fifteen minutes.
4. Bury it. If you have a garden bed, bury chunks a few inches down and let the soil take it. It feeds next year’s plants.

Don’t do this

• Don’t leave a whole pumpkin to rot on the porch. It turns into a bug and mold party.
• Don’t toss it in a sealed bag. Landfill pumpkins just produce methane locked in plastic. Breaking it up and composting is the part that actually matters.

This year the pumpkin went into the garden bed, and by spring I had no memory of it at all, just a patch of dirt that grew great tomatoes.