HOME TRUTHS: Personalize Your Pumpkins

A “Happy Birthday” message grows in a French garden. The raised straw bed conserves moisture in the soil, drains water away from the pumpkins to prevent rot, and cushions the fruit, promoting a rounded shape.

Now that Independence Day’s past, it’s time to start thinking about Halloween decorations—at least if you want to make unique ones of your own using pumpkins and gourds. August is generally when these fruits reach two thirds to three fourths of their full size, and it’s the ideal time to do some damage of a highly decorative sort. Using a sharp metal implement such as an ice pick or nail, scratch a thin design into, but not below, the fruit’s skin. By harvest time (when the skin and stem have hardened), your work, an initial, name, or message, say, will still be there, but slightly larger and in the form of a light-colored, sometimes raised scar that’s far more charming than it sounds. What, you didn’t plant pumpkins and gourds this spring? Some pumpkin patches and pick-your-own farms offer workshops where you can incise the fruit in late summer and return to pick it in the fall. To find one near you, visit pumpkinpatchesandmore.org.

The gardener’s signature on a gourd

Laura Dye Lang,
Executive Editor, Home Magazine, aka HomeSnark™