Help with Pumpkins/jack O' Lanterns

Whole, uncut pumpkins should last at least a couple of months--sometimes even until spring!--if you store them in a cool, dry place. You can certainly get one now for Halloween if you can keep it uncut that long (and keep your son from trying to carry it around like my 4-year-old does! They don't last very long when dropped, lol!).
We usually wait until a few days before Halloween to get ours, but that's only because as soon as we get them, our kids start begging to carve them! :-)
Hope that helps!
--A.

If you get one now it will be ok as long as you dont carve it, once you carve it, its starts to soften and get yucky.

I just brought my son to the pumpkin patch Friday and we got a pumpkin.

Carrie,
I took my sons to the Red Barn Farm a couple of weeks ago and they told us that pumpkins have a fungus that grows on them. So when you get the pumpkin home wipe it down with a mild solution of bleach water to get rid of the fungus and they will last longer.

A couple more bits of advice...if you put the pumpkins on the porch, check them periodically for moisture underneath (they rot really fast that way if mold starts growing). Also, once you carve your pumpkin, I heard if it starts drooping too early, you can submerge it in a bucket of cold water and it will absorb the water and perk up the pumpkin (b/c pumpkins are mostly water based). Of course, this is a very short lived remedy and will probably only hold up a day or so but may help you through Halloween.

Whole pumpkins can last a really long time if they are kept in a cool environment(like the front porch in October). Just don't carve them until about a week to 5 days before Halloween because if it stays too warm they shrivel and turn icky with mold.
We all painted pumpkins one year and it was a blast! I did the grateful dead dancing bears in a chain around the pumpkin, we did a giant spider on a web, a death skull, etc. I saw a really neat painting idea on a website that said to use a paper lace doiley cut it to fit over the stem and top of the pumpkin tape it down and using a stencil brush paint in the lace holes, when dried you remove the doiley and it leaves a really neat lace decoration on the top part of the pumpkin! Kinda neat.

Good luck! And have fun!

Since your lil punkin is only two, you might skip the carving and let him fingerpaint a pumpkin. That way, it'll last thru Halloween, and you can get some good snaps of him having a "wicked fun" time. :P

I think you are safe now. I would keep them inside though after you buy them. When I was a wee one some kids smashed our pumpkins and I was very upset. Also, if you carve your pumpking earlier than the day before Halloween you should coat the flesh that's exposed after cutting with vasoline so it doesn't dry out.