It's that time of the year again, so have you ever wondered what to do with your pumpkins after Halloween or the fireworks lying in your garden after the 5th November?
Well now’s the time to find out how to put them to good use.
Pumpkins
Pumpkins are relatively easy to compost if you are familiar with composting in general, but there are a few things you need to watch out for.
Firstly remove all pumpkin seeds from the pumpkin before placing on the compost heap. The seeds are known to be notoriously hardy and can survive the composting process intact. This is bad news for the garden unless you want lots of Pumpkin plants taking over your flower beds, and from my own experience this year, they take up a lot of room.
Secondly remove all the extra objects that might have been used for decorating the pumpkin, candles, metal tins from candles and anything else that isn’t able to be composted.
Thirdly if you want to speed up the process of composting the pumpkin, break it up into smaller pieces, this will increase the surface area and lead to faster decomposition.
And lastly once you add your pumpkin to the compost heap, cover it with leaves, cardboard or paper as this will protect against an insect invasion and also balance out the green and brown materials in the compost heap.
Fireworks
Fireworks are not completely compostable due to the heavy metals that are used to create the colours, but there are a few things we can reuse.
Firstly the sticks used on rockets can be used as plant supports.
Secondly if you empty the contents of the used or unused firework, including all of the metals and gun powder and give it a good brush, the cardboard can be added to the compost heap.
And lastly, used cold sparklers can be used as plant ties depending on the flexibility of each one, make sure they have been burnt down to the end to prevent any potential accidents.
