Pumpkin Mold

The scariest part of a jack-o-lantern isn't the scary face you carve into it or the spooky candle glowing in the dark.  It's the mold that covers the inside of the pumpkin a few weeks later!  We carved our pumpkins the second or third week of October and recently removed them from the deck.  Here's what they looked like after a month carved and sitting outside.

Mold grows best in warm, wet conditions.  It had rained during the 4 weeks the pumpkins were out, providing the moisture.  The temperature also reached into the upper 60s several days which provided the warmth.  Thus the mold.  This happens every year, but the mold has pretty much covered these pumpkins.  Yuck.  They went straight to the compost pile!  These pictures are a great lesson in why carved pumpkins go outside.