9 TIPS FOR BETTER PUMPKINS
 ðŸŽƒ PUMPKIN FUN TIME   ðŸŽƒ
 
  1. GET A PUMPKIN WITH A STEM.
    To ensure you’re getting the freshest pumpkin 🎃, look for one with a greenish stem. If a pumpkin has been sitting around, the stems will dry out and get brittle. The greener the stems the better. A big, thick stem is an indication that the walls of the pumpkin will be thick as well. The thicker the stem, the heavier the pumpkin and the better it is for carving or sculpting. Also avoid pumpkins with blemishes, soft spots, or bugs, as you would when picking out any other kind of fruit.
  1. LEAVE THE TOP OF THE PUMPKIN ON.
    Removing the top not only messes with the structural integrity of the pumpkin, it also cuts off the vine, which supplies the fruit with nutrients and moisture until it’s all dried out. When you cut the stem off, you’re kinda cutting off that lifeline that’s keeping the pumpkin 🎃 fresh.  
  1. DON'T CUT OFF THE BOTTOM
    Likewise, cutting off the bottom of your pumpkin🎃 is a bad idea because pumpkins give off so much water when you cut them that all that liquid can start oozing out onto the table or whatever surface the pumpkin is on and really make a mess. Try cutting a large enough hole in the back of the pumpkin to fit in your diffuser. Of course you need to be sure your pumpkin is large enough to house the diffuser...
  1. WEAR RUBBER GLOVES.
    There’s no getting around it: You’ll have to get a little dirty scooping out the inside of the pumpkin🎃. But if you find the goop that gross, Evan suggests donning rubber gloves.
  1. SCOOP EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR PUMPKIN. AND WE MEAN EVERYTHING.
    Leaving bits of pumpkin goop inside your jack o’lantern is a big no-no. Those are gonna start getting moldy and then it’ll spread to the walls of the pumpkin 🎃 Scrape the walls really thin and get every last little stringy bit out, the walls are almost drier and seem to stay that way longer before they start to break down. 
  1. KEEP YOUR PUMPKIN COOL.😎
    You want to keep the pumpkin ðŸŽƒas cold as possible, and if you have a heat source inside of it, the pumpkin is gonna start to cook inside. Which actually can smell nice, but doesn’t help with the longevity of the pumpkin. Diffusers are a good idea for they use a cool steam.
  1. THINK BEYOND THE TYPICAL PUMPKIN CARVING KIT.
    Pro carvers, Evan and the Maniac Pumpkin crew, will use whatever it takes to carve a pumpkin, including paring knives, lemon zesters, rasps, Exacto knives, saws, and clay sculpting tools. “Ribbon hoops that are normally effective on clay work great on pumpkins,” Evan says. “One of our favorites actually is a linoleum cutter, normally used in print-making—it’s great for doing intricate designs and line work. Really, anything that is sharp can be useful.”

    Still, for scooping, you can’t get much better than what comes in a kid’s pumpkin carving kit. “We love those little plastic orange scoops,” he says. “But you can also use big spoons—we have a couple of big, wide salad serving spoons that we’ve snapped the handles off of, and those work really great.
  1. KEEP A WATER BOTTLE HANDY WHILE YOU’RE CARVING YOUR PUMPKIN. ðŸŽƒ
    “Pumpkins don’t oxidize as fast as an apple or avocado would, but if you leave it out on the counter over the course of just one day, you do see the change in the structure of the pumpkin,” Evan says. “It’s losing a lot of moisture, so one thing we do while carving is we’re constantly spraying it, trying to keep it wet. That helps it to stay workable.
  1. WAIT TO CARVE YOUR PUMPKIN ðŸŽƒ—BUT WORK FAST ONCE YOU START.
    You can buy your pumpkin whenever you want—“they should last a really long time until you carve them,” Evan says—but wait until you want display to start carving. He and his crew at Maniac Pumpkin Carvers usually create a pumpkin just 24 hours before an event, and once they start carving, they don’t stop until a pumpkin is finished, which can sometimes take 10 hours. “We’re working with a perishable food item,” Evan says. “As soon as you cut into it, it’s starting to decompose. It’s unpredictable—we’ve had some carved that last three weeks but then others three days. At home, it’s kind of safe to carve it within two or three days of when you really want it for. But if you want it for Halloween, you shouldn’t carve it at the beginning of October.”  
BONUS TIP