Join the LES Ecology Center and La Plaza Cultural Community Garden for this year’s Pumpkin Smash! Bring your pumpkins, Jack-o-Lanterns, and gourds and help us streamline them into a compost pile (not a landfill!) where it can decompose properly.

This is a FREE family-friendly event that teaches participants how composting demonstrates a closed-loop system – transforming our organic waste such as banana peels and apple cores, to a natural fertilizer to nourish the soil to grow more food – all on a local level. Your pumpkins will be turned into finished compost which will then be used on City parks and public green spaces to rebuild the soil.

Additional fun activities include:

• Worm bin exploration

• Native seed ball making

• Community compost site tours

• Cooking with food scraps

• ...and more!

Remember that most pumpkins are edible! Do what you can to make sure that the pumpkins you have are used to their fullest extent before being brought to the event for composting. We suggest finding a new recipe for baking with pumpkin!

Registration is not required, but gives us a good indication of how many people we can expect to attend. Can’t make it? You can bring your jack-o-lanterns to a food scrap drop-off site near you! For a map of food scrap drop-off sites, visit nyc.gov/dropfoodscraps.

For more information on the Lower East Side Ecology Center or La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden visit the links provided