How to make a Halloween Pumpkin step by step

Hello to all Farmers! As you know, the terrifying Halloween night is approaching, a party linked to the garden, as it has its origin in a Celtic festival known as Samhain, which derives from the old Irish and means «end of summer».

In previous articles we have talked about how to plant pumpkin and how to grow it. Thanks to this we have managed to obtain a good pumpkin harvest ready for the Halloween party. We just need to know how to make a Halloween pumpkin, that’s why we have prepared this article, accompanied by a new video of Agriculture for RURbanitas from our YouTube channel.

Where does the Halloween party come from?

The ancient Britons had a similar holiday known as Calan Gaeaf. Samhain celebrated the end of the harvest season in Celtic culture and was considered the «Celtic New Year», which began with the dark season.

When the Roman occupation of the Celtic domains took place, the festival was assimilated by them. Although the last days of October and the first days of November were already celebrated a festivity known as the «harvest festival», in honor of Pomona (goddess of fruit trees), and both traditions were mixed.

In 1840 this festivity reaches the United States and Canada, where it remains strongly rooted. Irish immigrants passed down versions of the tradition during the Great Irish Famine. It was they who spread the custom of carving the jack-o’-lantern or Halloween pumpkin, inspired by the legend of «Jack the Stingy».

How to make a Halloween pumpkin step by step

To make a Halloween pumpkin or «jack-o’-lantern» we don’t need anything more than a pumpkin (obviously), a knife, a marker, a spoon and a candle if you want to light up your pumpkin. Follow these steps carefully and you will get your “jack-O’-lantern” or Halloween pumpkin:

1. Draw with a marker on the pumpkin the pattern of the parts you are going to cut out. I have drawn the typical Halloween pumpkin face with eyes and mouth, but you can do whatever you want, there are a lot of variations. You must draw a pattern on the top of the pumpkin, where the «tail» is, because we are going to cut the lid and then empty it.
2. Next, we are going to trim the top. Stick the knife into the pumpkin and cut following the pattern you have drawn. You must be very careful because the pumpkin is very hard and you can cut yourself. In addition, you will have to go over the cut several times until you manage to uncover the pumpkin. This task is not entirely easy, so you must be patient and be careful not to break the top, since we will use it again later to cover our Halloween pumpkin.Hollow out the lid and cut the strands inside that join the top to the rest of the pumpkin. Clean the base of the lid and set it aside.
3. Now we are going to empty the pumpkin. I recommend that you start by cutting the strands so that later it is easier for you to remove the pulp and the seeds. With the help of a spoon, empty your Halloween pumpkin. You can put the pulp and seeds in a bowl and then reuse them, for example, for cooking or to save the seeds for later years. If you use a specific utensil to empty it will be much easier.
4. Once the pumpkin is empty, we proceed to cut out the rest of the drawing, in this case the eyes and the mouth. Now, it does not matter if the parts that we extract break because they will be empty, so you should not be as careful as with the lid.
5. Finally, if you want to create a real Jack-O’-Lantern or Halloween pumpkin, light a candle, insert it into the pumpkin, and attach the top.

To see the effect better, turn off the light. You already have your Halloween pumpkin!

The origin of the Halloween pumpkin

An Irish legend tells that there was a rascal named Jack the Stingy. The devil, to whom the rumor of such a black soul reached, went to check if he really was a rival of such caliber.

Disguised as a normal man, he went to his town and began to drink with him for long hours, revealing his identity after seeing that, indeed, Jack was a true villain. When Lucifer told him that he was coming to take him away to make him pay for his sins, Jack asked him to drink one more round together, as his last wish.

The devil granted it, but when they went to pay neither of them had any money, so Jack challenged Lucifer to turn himself into a coin to demonstrate his powers. Satan did, but instead of paying with the coin, Jack put it in his pocket, where he carried a silver crucifix. Unable to get out of there, the devil ordered the farmer to set him free, but Jack replied that he wouldn’t unless he promised to go back to hell not to bother him for a year.

After that time, the devil appeared again at Jack’s house to take him to the underworld, but again Jack made a last wish, in this case, that the master of darkness take an apple located on top of a tree in order to have one last meal before his eternal torment. Lucifer agreed, but when he was up the tree, Jack carved a cross into his trunk so he couldn’t escape.

On this occasion he asked not to be disturbed for ten years, in addition to another condition: that the devil could never claim his soul for the underworld. Satan agreed and Jack was freed from the threat of him.

His fate was no better: after dying, Jack prepared to go to heaven, but was stopped at the gates of San Pedro, being prevented from passing because they could not accept him because of his bad past life, being sent to hell.

To his misfortune, they couldn’t accept him there either due to the deal he had made with the devil, who incidentally expelled him from his kingdom and, piqued, threw some burning embers at Jack, which the farmer caught with a hollow turnip, while mockingly thanking the improvised flashlight that he thus obtained. C

Driven to wander the roads, he walked with no other light than the already mentioned flashlight in his eternal wandering between the realms of good and evil. Over time Jack the Stingy was known as Jack the Lantern or «Jack of the Lantern», a name that was shortened to the definitive «Jack O’Lantern».

This is the reason for using turnips, and later pumpkins, (by imitating with their color the glow of infernal embers) to light the way for the deceased on Halloween, and also the reason for decorating houses with these horrendous figures, to prevent Jack from knocking on the door of the houses and propose «trick or treat».

That’s all, I hope the article will help you decorate your Halloween party. Until next time!