Smash Your Pumpkins In Hudson River Park Saturday

CHELSEA, NY — Now's your chance to obliterate a pumpkin with a baseball bat.

Hudson River Park invites New Yorkers to bring their pumpkins to Chelsea Waterside Park Saturday at 11 a.m. where they can use shovels, mallets or just good old fashioned strength to pulverize pumpkins into compost for the West Side park.

The post-Halloween bash is family friendly and will include fall festivities and refreshments on top of an arsenal of tools to hack away at the winter squash.

Pumpkin patches were drenched with more rain than usual this season and parks workers expect the orange orbs to be decaying faster and be particularly susceptible to the smashing this season, said a spokeswoman for the Hudson River Park Trust.

Once participants have pureed their pumpkins into a pulpy mess, they'll be asked to scoop up the remains into a bucket for further mashing before the stew goes into the park's composting machine.

The biodegradable slush will then be transformed and used to nourish the flower beds across the West Side park.

The event is part of the park's Community Compost Program, which has peppered seven bins across the park for composting material drop off. Park officials invite folks to contribute an assortment of fruits and veggies, coffee grounds, egg shells and more to the bins from 7 a.m.-7 p.m daily.

In 2018 to date, Hudson River Park has composted more than 400,000 pounds of food scraps from the community.

The "Pumpkin Smash: Don't Trash It, Smash It!" will be at Chelsea Waterside Park on 11th Avenue and 23rd Street on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 11 a.m.

Photo courtesy of Rick Uldricks/Patch