Green Digger Autumn Trail

You won’t miss a trick when you treat your garden by recycling that scary pumpkin Halloween Jack-o-Lantern.

That’s the message from the eco-conscious Green Diggers, the young members of the West Sussex Green Club.

The call came after the young gardeners visited Wakehurst Place, the Ardingly branch of the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew), where they took part in a pumpkin search, went on a guided autumn nature trail and studied seasonal plants.

The Green Diggers say: “A staggering million pumpkins are sold every year in the UK – and most are used for making lanterns. However, thousands of them go straight into the bin.

That means they could end up in a landfill site, which is bad for our environment and costly.

However, you can avoid this by putting your pumpkin in your compost bin.

When making your Jack-o-Lantern the pulp could be used to make delicious soup and the seeds can go straight into the compost bin.

Once Halloween is over, you can add the carved shell to the compost bin after breaking it up.

This will break down in time to give next summer’s garden a great

boost.”

John de Mierre, West Sussex County Council Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning, said: “I would urge all gardeners to follow the advice of our Green Diggers.

“Composting is one of the most sustainable and economical methods of disposing of your garden and uncooked kitchen waste”.

By working as a partnership, West Sussex local authorities will reduce landfill by being leaders in waste prevention, recycling and by using rubbish as a resource.”