Drying the pumpkin - this will keep it looking good for a long time

Drying the pumpkin without shrinking - is that possible?

Just not in the oven

As purely natural products, all types of pumpkin are rich in water. This is primarily the cause of mold formation within a short period of time. A variety of vegetables are placed in the oven to dry. For a completely carved pumpkin, this type of drying naturally has fatal consequences: It shrinks dramatically because the moisture is withdrawn far too quickly.

Dry first - then carve

Forward-looking lantern carvers favor the opposite route. You dry the most beautiful pumpkin immediately after harvest and then beautify it. The unwanted water has warped so that mold has no chance. Under these conditions, the pumpkin carving art can be admired for months. That's how it's done:

cut off the fully ripe pumpkin
leave a piece of the fruit stem on the pumpkin
wash carefully with warm soapy water
Rinse thoroughly with cold, clear tap water
lay out on wood or styrofoam in an airy, cool place
Turn every 14 days to prevent pressure points
Scrape off any rotten areas with a blunt knife

Alternatively, you can hang the pumpkin on a string, for example in the branches of a tree. Dangling from a high fence, the drying pumpkin is used as an autumn decoration during the season. If smaller spots of rot appear, they are scraped off. After 6 to 12 months, the pumpkin is dry and ready for artistic processing.

Accelerated drying with a risk factor

Since the thick, firm skin is responsible for the long drying time, pumpkin connoisseurs advocate the following procedure:

Ripe the pumpkin for a few weeks and let it dry
Scrape off the outer layer of the pumpkin skin with a blunt knife
Place in a warm, air-bathed place and turn every 2 days until the pumpkin is dry

The risk with this method is that the exposed lower layer of peel is more prone to infection, such as powdery mildew.

Tips & Tricks

In one experiment, carved pumpkins were prepared with a special pumpkin preservative, bleach, acrylic, petroleum jelly and glue. A pumpkin was left to its own devices to dry out in peace. The result was quite surprising. With a total of 14 days, two pumpkins withstood the longest of transience: the candidate treated with a special spray and ... the natural pumpkin.