Throwing your jack o'lantern in the trash is not fun. Throwing him out of a pumpkin catapult is! Many fall festivals conclude this weekend with a celebration of pumpkin smashing, squishing, spiking and splashing. 

Cox Farms Pumpkin Madness adds pumpkin destruction to its regular attractions in this last weekend of its Fall Festival. You can hurl a pumpkin over the lake in the pumpkin catapult, or have it dropped from a crane or driven over by a tractor. Smaller pumpkins be impaled on the wall of spikes, use t as balls in arcade-style games or walked over them. Just stay clear of the splash zone!

Great Country Farms, just outside Bluemont in Loudoun County, celebrates Pumpkin Chunkin' Week from Nov. 1- 7. Drop pumpkins from the 40 foot Drop Zone at noon weekdays and at noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on the weekend, or down the Silo Drop any time. You can also send your jack-o-lantern to its final destination down the Zip Wire. While you're at Great Country, navigate through their corn maze, jump on the huge outdoor pillow, and play a round of Cow Pie Putt-Putt. 

If you've already tossed your jack o'lantern on the compost pile, some other venues smash only their own pumpkins. Try Pumpkin Bowling at Ticonderoga Farms in Chantilly, the Pumpkin Blasters at the Temple Hall Corn Maize and Fall Festival, or Pumpkin Olympics at Pumpkinville at the Leesburg Animal Park. In pumpkin bowling, the pumpkin "ball" rolls down the hill slide into pumpkin "pins" at the bottom. Pumpkin blasters are cannons you shoot at targets 100 yards across the field. Pumpkin Olympics feature games played with – you guessed it – pumpkins.

Ticonderoga Farms' fall festival runs through November 10.Temple Hall is operated by the Northern Virginia Park Authority and is open November 1, 2, 6 and 7. You can shoot corn and paintballs in addition to pumpkins at Temple Hall. Pumpkinville is open daily through Nov. 7.