Pumpkin

Pumpkins are blocks that appear on grass, spawned in random clusters in most Overworld biomes, though somewhat rarely. They can be crafted into pumpkin seeds for farming, and always spawn with a face carved in them.

Pumpkins cannot be placed without a block under them, but once placed, will remain even if the block underneath is mined away. When placed, pumpkins automatically face the player. When a pumpkin is pushed by a piston, it breaks. It also cannot be pulled by a sticky piston.

Appearance
Pumpkins always spawn with a face carved on one of its horizontal sides. If the pumpkin is placed by a player, that side is oriented towards the placing player's position at the time.

It was originally stated by Notch that they were to be found and then subsequently carved by crafting. Instead, pumpkins can be crafted into jack 'o' lanterns (see below). Jeb has stated that pumpkins may eventually spawn uncarved.

As a helmet
A pumpkin can be equipped as a helmet without any actual armor value, but will instead function as a mask that allows the player to look at Endermen without provoking an attack. When worn, they limit the player's viewing area to a mask pattern that resembles the pumpkin's carved face. In Creative Mode, pumpkins can be enchanted as if it were a helmet, and can then provide protection.

As a utilty mob ingredient
Pumpkins can be used to make Snow Golems and Iron Golems as shown below. Snow Golems require snow blocks for their bodies, while Iron Golems require iron blocks. The pumpkin must be placed last or the Golem will not spawn.

Farming
Pumpkin farming strategies parallel those of melons. Planted pumpkin seeds grow a central stem that, after maturing, spawns pumpkins randomly in adjacent vacant dirt/grass/farmland. If a pumpkin is harvested without also cutting the central stalk, another pumpkin will spawn afterwards without requiring replanting or waiting for the stalk to mature again. Pumpkin farms require somewhat less maintenance than carrot, potato, and wheat farms, since they only require continually harvesting the pumpkins, and do not require manual replanting.

If a mature central stalk is cut (instead of being left to grow more pumpkins), it yields pumpkin seeds. Seeds can also be found in chests in Abandoned Mineshafts, or by finding naturally-spawned pumpkins and crafting them into seeds.

Pumpkin stems take around 10 to 30 minutes to fully develop. Bonemeal will cause a pumpkin stem to become fully-grown, but will not produce a pumpkin immediately. As pumpkin stalks only need to be grown once in order to spawn unlimited pumpkins afterwards, they represent a more worthwhile investment of bonemeal than most other plants.

Pumpkins will grow facing 0 (south) in a farm, regardless of where the stem is, but natural wild pumpkins can be found facing any direction. Since pumpkins can grow on both farmland and dirt, there is no reason to till the dirt back to farmland after harvesting a pumpkin, especially since an appearing pumpkin destroys the farmland beneath it. Pumpkin stems will only connect to one pumpkin block, if not already connected to one, they will connect to any pumpkin that grows or is placed next to them. Once connected to a pumpkin, a stem cannot grow another one until the one it's linked to is removed.

For more details and farm layout suggestions, see the tutorial. One fairly good layout is shown below.



Trivia

 * The pumpkin is the only headgear that obstructs the player's view.
 * If you use an inventory editor to change a pumpkin's damage value, the pumpkin will have no carving, and you can wear it without the carving. Once placed, it will revert to its normal texture.
 * Regardless of the direction the pumpkin is facing, the upper texture is always oriented the same way.
 * Pumpkins cannot be placed directly on transparent blocks; they can be placed indirectly by placing an opaque block first, then placing the pumpkin on it, then removing the opaque block, then putting the transparent block
 * Although pumpkins can spawn on farmland (converting it back to dirt), they cannot be placed onto farmland by the player.
 * If a 1 block high mob is standing next to a pumpkin stem when a pumpkin grows, the mob will suffocate inside the pumpkin or automatically move one block so it's not in the pumpkin. For this reason, it is wise not to place your pets in pumpkin gardens.
 * Undead mobs and Spider Jockeys have a chance to spawn wearing a Pumpkin (or, more rarely, a Jack o'Lantern) on October 31 (Halloween). While Zombies and Skeletons burn normally in daylight, they do not do so when wearing a helmet, and these do count.  Note that the player can not wear a Jack o'Lantern. The mobs will also not drop it if killed.
 * Since pumpkin stems automatically bend towards an adjacent pumpkin so that they appear to be connected, if a pumpkin spawns between two pumpkin stems they both will be connected to it. This also happens with Melons.
 * In the Pocket Edition's Prerelease, pumpkins were a placeable block, but were removed before the alpha release, then re-added in 0.8.0. However, they can't be used as a helmet.