We had a frost on the side where the garden is.

Sadly.

But, we had already harvested our pumpkins.

We had 38 of them!

Now what?

First of all, I am giving quite a few of them away to various friends and neighbors.

Secondly, I will probably cook at least one of them up and put it in the freezer as puree.

But the rest of the ones I’m keeping? I’m working on dehydrating them.

I thought I’d share how I’m doing that.

Here goes.

How I’m dehydrating my pumpkins.

In pictures.

1. Bring the pumpkin in

Wash it to get the worst of the dirt off and cut it up. Use a big knife and cut it in half or in chunks. Scoop out the seeds using an ice cream scoop. If you save the seeds, put them to one side. Otherwise, throw them in the compost.

2. Cut the pumpkin into smallish chunks.

Cut it up after you have cleaned out the middle mushy/seeds stuff.

3. Cut it into chunks.

So far I haven’t taken off the rind.

4. Take off the rind

I use a knife and cut it off.

5. Put the smallish chunks through my french fry maker

It’s hand driven.

6. Push hard!

This creates nice small pieces of pumpkin. You could also cook them as french fried pumpkin They are really good!

7. Admire.

Collect in a bowl.

8. Put in a pot to steam

I put the strings in a pot that has holes in it in an effort to steam them for 3-5 minutes before dehydrating.

9. Steam

Steam for 3-5 minutes. I leave a lid on the top in an effort to keep as much steam inside as possible.

10. When finished, dump the steamed pumpkin into a pan

I put them in a metal pan so they could cool off a bit before I handled them.

11. Fill my dehydrator trays

Try to be neat and not stack them on top of each other. Pumpkin is 90% water, so they will shrink down quite a bit.

12. Close they dehydrator.

Set timer for 2 hours. Every two hours for 10 hours I changed the trays around.

13. Dry

See how small they are?

14. Place pumpkin into a bowl to air out

Before I blended I let them cool off completely.

15. Put in blender

After they were all cooled off completely, I put them in the blender.

16. Blend

Blend until you think they are powder.

17. Take a peek

Here’s what you’ve got! Some powdery looking pumpkin colored stuff and some small pieces.

18. Place strainer over a bowl

It helps to make sure the bowl is big enough and fits the strainer nicely.

19. Put the contents of the blender into the strainer

Pour all the contents from the blender into the strainer.

20. Shake the strainer a bit to get the small pieces to fall through

Shake gently. Anything that doesn’t fall through put through the blender again. And again. For the last things that don’t want to blend, put in the dehydrator again to dry some more. I found that I could spread it on the very bottom of mine and let the fan dry it for about 30 min. and I could put it back through. I could do that because my dehydrator has a fan in the top.

21. Look at your powder/flour/small pieces

Take a look at what you’ve got.

22. Pour your powder/flour tiny stuff into a dry, clean jar

I used a funnel.

23. All that work and it makes just a little!

Continue to add to your jar. This jar holds 1.7 liters.

24. My collection so far.

This is what I’ve dehydrated so far. The ratio is 1/4 cup pumpkin to 2 cups of boiling water and let sit for 20 minutes before using in cake or pie. This should save me quite a bit of space!

I’m saving some seeds!

Butternut squash on the left and Big Max seeds on the right

And so this is a fitting end to the best pumpkin growing season I’ve ever had in my life.

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you over in the shop!

Pumpkin Harvest! Now What?