Right now at stores all over the city, country lanes and locally at a one or more of our green houses, sales are happening, the value of the pumpkins and squash’s grown for Halloween just dropped like a stone.

Last night a big local greenhouse just put up a post with wagons and pallets and bins still a quarter or more full with hundreds of pumpkins with a note that say stop by today the 31st to pick you free pumpkin and squash up today only, clear us out!

Now i know that you will not find these sales from tiny market stalls because most of those folks would rather feed them as livestock fodder and in combo with processing it for their own add on value use and a few midsize growers have given me the look and one even said would rather compost them then let them go at a sale prices so take this with a grain of salt and shrug it off if you get a told no, its not personal, they just put a high value on what grew.

But if you hit the right farmer, the right stand or the right store you are about to hit the jackpot in terms of picking up reasonable priced pumpkins an squash. Ideally you are going for smaller pie pumpkins if you can do so, you will get a much better result then typical larger carving pumpkins but if you hit the jackpot and can get funky heritage pumpkins, oooohhh the flavor and such you will get!

When it comes to processing them, cut them, clean them and bake them to try and keep them as dry within reason as you can, then mash and portion and freeze into the sizes you like for soups, stews, baking and so on. You can also take that lovely baked mashed and dry it and then grind the dried into a powder to be used in soup bases, smoothies and baking with it being self stable.

One other source that might be available local to you is a seed grower, each year, one of our local seed growers hosts a harvest the pumpkin and squash days, where you trade some of your time to help pull out the mature seeds for future processing to be sold in exchange for getting to take home a good amount and selection of free pumpkin/squash, as they only need the seeds kept back, talk about a win/win and a great way to share out high quality food into the community!

What creative ways other then growing your own and not everyone has space to do so, what is your favorite place to get your pumpkins from? Do you shop the sales after Halloween is over? Do you find you have regular sales in your area on your pumpkins and squash? If you do a nice big display, do you process them afterwards, do you compost them, or do you drop them off at your favorite local farm for fodder?

As we have had a very wet year, i have learned what area’s in the new park garden hold water the fastest and longest and i have plans to use that information next year in terms of where some what will appear to be very random squash hills will be placed.

Farmgal Tip: put a notice up on facebook if you want to do so that you will take dropped off clean carved (not painted) pumpkins for livestock fodder, those that make it to fodder great and those that can’t make it to the compost pile.

30 Day Mini Challenge Day of Getting my writing mojo back! Day 8 and Happy Halloween!