Yes, they most often do. Unless you've got a pretty hot pile going.

Thank you. I read this in a blog that apparently just grabs data w/o really understanding it well enough to include qualifiers or exceptions. I expected a qualifier like “ seeds may sprout unless you run a hot compost”. This is the 2nd time this person Has published what I deem incomplete data.

In some 50 years of composting and adding many different squashes, pumpkins, melons, etc. I have had on occasion plants grow from the seeds in that fruit but not often enough to be of major concern and certainly not often enough to not compost that material.

Most often the seeds from those fruits were roasted and eaten rather than simply tossed out.

Tomatoes def sprout for me. True, they’re not hard to pull but keeping them out in the first place reduces my unwanted watch list. Then you see us posting: “what is this, did not Plant”. Chili Pequin, even a green pepper once, papaya too.

Worth repeating:

• • "They will sprout.
• It's not a problem, just pull up the sprouts and toss them back into the heap."

Alternatively, gut out the seeds, salt and roast them, then fill the hollowed pumpkin with carbon-heavy mulch and drop in a handful of red wigglers. Makes a nice castings time bomb.

If you turn the pile now and then that will take care of it.

I covet pumpkins for my compost! They're like little furnaces in the compost pile. I don't compost mint, but volunteering pumpkins and tomatoes never get a foothold in my garden, unless I want them to.

You can set up a Pumpkin Recycling Station and let the pumpkins come to you!