OR cook it in a microwave oven as you would a winter squash. Pumpkins are, after all, members of the squash tribe. Cooked pumpkins make intriguing serving dishes for a fall stew or soup. Planting trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, bulbs, and even hardy seeds continues through October, November, December, and even into January in the maritime Pacific Northwest. Fall is the most active planting period.
Soils are still warm and conducive to root growth.
Plant any time the weather is above freezing. Fall rains can keep plants watered, and cooler temperatures reduce stress from water loss out of the leaves, which normally occurs in hot summer weather. Be sure you have chosen an area where plants will have excellent drainage. More plants die in the winter in this region from drowning in wet soils, basically from a lack of oxygen at their roots, than die from freezing. I Want to Keep Them Alive over the Winter.