Imagine a few weeks ago, you carved a pumpkin. Now it’s turned into an ooey, gooey mess. Yuck! Its face is collapsing, black fuzz is growing, and stinky slime is leaking out. That’s not the spooky look you were going for—it’s rotting!
A whole pumpkin can last for months. But once it has been carved, it breaks down fast. “Carving makes a huge wound that is an opening for microbes,” says Ashley Edwards. She’s a plant expert at Virginia Tech. Microbes like fungi and bacteria enter the pumpkin through the cut openings. They start gobbling up the orange flesh. At the same time, the pumpkin shrivels as it dries out.
Edwards has some tips to make your carved creation last longer (see Delay the Decay, below). “The more care you put into it, the longer it will last,” she says.