Sustainable Greenville

You may not have to search as hard as Linus to find The Great Pumpkin, but your search still is not easy. Sustainably grown pumpkins are a rarity. It is probably the one vegetable we think about the least when considering how it was grown.

Halloween is one of our great consumerist holidays, filled with pumpkins, lot ands lots of  overly sweet goodies, autumn decorations and of course disposable costumes. Most of what we buy (and see across the Upstate landscape) ends up in our landfills fairly quickly. We will spend a couple of billion dollars on all of this STUFF. This Halloween let?s make a contribution by having a green Halloween.

Yikes! Who ever heard of a green Halloween!

The bright orange pumpkins we buy for Halloween as jack-o'-lanterns are one of many types of pumpkins. The sugar, green and white lumina pumpkins are available in many stores and markets and are great for food dishes. However, a sustainably grown pumpkin is more difficult to find. There are a few pumpkin patches around that offer healthy, clean pumpkins. Mini-Miracles Farm in Taylors and Rose Hill Plantation in Easley are two of them. If you go to any other farm or the market, ask about the pumpkins. Find out how they were grown. Izzys at The Saturday Market in downtown Greenville has several types of sustainably grown pumpkins for the next few weeks.

Except for pumpkin pies (which usually are made from squash), most people have never eaten pumpkins. Pumpkins are good sources of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, potassium, protein, iron and they are low in calories, fat, and sodium and high in fiber. Pumpkins are actually a fruit and are classified as a type of squash related to cucumbers and melons. Pumpkins are native to our continent and have been domestically grown here for several thousand years. In 1584, after French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence region of North America, he reported finding "gros melons". The name was translated into English as "pompions," which eventually evolved into the modern "pumpkin."

If you want to hunt for or pick your own pumpkin, start your search at http://www.pickyourown.org/SC.htm . After Halloween, instead of throwing away the jack-o'-lantern, here are a couple of environmentally friendly things to do with it: put it in the compost heap - it will make good fertilizer, bury it in the garden - it will decay quickly and enrich the soil, and last and probably best, wash, dry and save the seeds to plant next year (they will grow!) What not to do: eat it! Unless you want to get sick.

And of course every trick or treater has gotten sick from eating way too much candy. The amazing thing is how toxic much of the candy landscape is, with ingredients too difficult to pronounce to the abundance of saturated fats. Organic and all natural sweets are on the rise. Not only are natural food stores offering organic candy bars, even the average grocery is carrying the healthy sweets. An awesome small chocolate bar is Green & Black's. Even Nestle has gotten into the organic fray. Other ideas? Pick up some fruit leather or honey sticks at grocery stores, health food stores or tea shops. Another suggestion is to hand out individual microwave popcorn packs. Newman's Own Organic makes wonderful microwave popcorn. You can even give away nonfood items like coins, gift certificates, organic seed packets or endangered animal stickers.

What about all of those decorations? Corn stalks stalk our lawns assuredly. Yet there are a lot of fake plastic decorations running amok. Can we not refrain from the consumer urge to festoon our homes with gaudy decorations? Switching to all natural locally grown pumpkins, gourds, corn and the ever approaching falling leaves offer up a green solution and also provides attractive appeal up through Thanksgiving. Keeping in mind of course the need to find sustainable farms that are willing to give up some sustainably grown corn stalks, is the best way to go. Want to find some of those farms? Do a search at http://www.localharvest.org  or check out the listing at http://www.gofohealthandeducation.org/farmers.html

Another plastic maelstrom endemic to Halloween is costumes. And the worst part is most of those costumes are quickly sucked to the trash can and then to our landfills. How long will that plastic last in our Upstate landfills? Too long, slowly leaching petrocarbons into our watersheds. Are there other options for the over plasticized trick or treater? Yes, Charlie Brown, there is!

Halloween can be a blast for the creative individual, offering up the opportunity to set the imagination free and search the home, thrift shops, dollar stores and Goodwill for items to be turned into costumes that everyone would talk about. Searching the budget clothing stores is a good way to create the retro look. How about being a Woodstock hippie or a 30?s gangster? Just don?t carry that 45! Goodwill has an online store locator with a section that offers up some fun and creative costume ideas made from their second-hand garb. Some people may make fun of you dressed as mother earth, covered in leaves, twigs, feathers and the like, but at least you can say you are truly recycling nature.

For the creatively challenged individual there are several great websites that give you ideas on making your own costumes. For the green minded try Suite 101's website for costumes at http://greenliving.suite101.com/article.cfm/spooked_by_halloween_waste_junk For those on a tight budget check out http://www.budget101.com/budget102_boo.htm for great costume ideas. And another green afficionado is Mable's Unique Shopping Blog. She has a ton of great ideas featuring sustainable clothing, makeup, reusable trick or treat bags and conventional costumes for sale. Check out the site at http://www.mables.com/blog/

If you neither have the time nor the desire to create your own costume there are options that cost next to nothing. You can go to the online sites Freecycle and Craigslist and post a ?looking for a Halloween Costume?. Doing so may be a little dicey. The costumes may be a little old and worn with creases, cuts, and holes. But what the heck, all you have to do is pay for the ride to pick up a free costume.

Let?s remember Halloween can be as green as you want it. Some people even try to get together and have green Halloween trick or treat events or parties. More and more churches and neighborhoods hold trunk or treats. Bring your hybrid filled with some of our suggestions and you are well on your way to the greenest Halloween in history. Or even better, coordinate among your green friends to have a green trick or treat event. That way you are assured your friends will be green with Halloween envy.

Go greeen for Halloween!!!