Some kids enjoy watching cartoons, playing outside or playing video games. Some kids, however, like Rylan Bagwell, of EB Morse Elementary in Laurens, enjoys planting. In fact, he’s pretty good at it.
Recently, the South Carolina Agriculture Department selected him as the winner of a $1,000 savings bond for his talented ability to grow a massive 47-pound-cabbage.
Bagwell was one of more than 1.5 million third graders in 48 states who received hands-on gardening experience growing colossal cabbages with high hopes of winning “best in state” courtesy of Bonnie Plants.
At the end of the season, teachers from each class select the student who has grown the “best” cabbage, based on size and appearance. A digital image of the cabbage and student is submitted online at www.bonnieplants.com. That student’s name is then entered in a statewide drawing. State winners are randomly selected by the Commission of Agriculture, in each of 48 participating states.
“The Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program is a wonderful way to engage children’s interest in agriculture, while teaching them not only the basics of gardening, but the importance of our food systems and growing our own”, said Stan Cope, President of Bonnie Plants. This unique, innovative program exposes children to agriculture and demonstrates, through hands-on experience, where food comes from. The program also affords our youth with some valuable life lessons in nurture, nature, responsibility, self-confidence and accomplishment.”
Each year Bonnie Plants, the largest producer of vegetable and herb plants in North America, with 70 growing facilities across the country, trucks free O.S. Cross, or “oversized,” cabbage plants to third grade classrooms whose teachers have signed up for the program online at www.bonnieplants.com. If nurtured and cared for, kids can cultivate, nurture and grow giant cabbages, some bigger than a basketball, tipping the scales, often over 40 pounds!
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