In March of 2008, Jon came home from school with a very small little cabbage plant from Bonnie Plants and a paper explaining that this is part of a 3rd grade cabbage program that is put on by bonnie plants. They give each 3rd grader at participating schools a free cabbage plant to grow that summer. The 3rd grader has to take care of it until it reaches maturity, harvest it, and take a picture of themselves with it. They also have to keep a diary of when they planted it and how they cared for it, when they fertilized it, placed bug repellent on it, watered it, and harvested the head. When school starts again, they send in the paper showing their care of the plant and picture of the harvested cabbage to their school. The school picks a winner and sends it to Bonnie Plants. Bonnie plants then picks a winner from each state. Each state winner receives a $1000 savings bond scholarship.
When Jon brought his plant home, he and his Dad decided on a location in the backyard garden area to plant it. Our neighbors, Dave Vincent and Dave McAllister, gave us some manure to fertilize the soil with. Soon, that tiny little plant started to grow. Jon watered it almost every day, fertilized it every couple of weeks, and put bug repellent on it several times. It grew really big, really fast. We debated when to harvest it as time went on. We chose to harvest it in June due to the dry conditions and it looked as if it might start to turn brown or quit growing. When we went to cut the head off, we found 3 other small heads that had started to grow under the biggest one. The large one was larger than a basket ball. The leaves of the plant were over 3 feet wide. Two of the smaller ones were the size of the heads of cabbage that you see in the grocery store, the other one was about the size of a softball. It was truly amazing! We took lots of pictures through out the entire time, from when he planted it to when he harvested it. The largest head weighed in at 30 pounds! It filled the kitchen sink! We made a ton of coleslaw out of it! We took coleslaw to family and friend gatherings that whole month!
Jon had so much fun planting, caring for, and harvesting that cabbage! When school started we turned in his picture and his diary. It seemed like a long time later until we heard that he was the winner for Parker Elementary School and that it had been sent in to Bonnie Plants. He heard that he was the school winner in November. We started checking the Bonnie plants website (www.bonnieplants.com) weekly to see if he had won for Indiana. They filled in other state winners, but each time they didn't list a winner for Indiana. We had given up hope as the year ended and just figured that the school must have not gotten it turned in before the deadline, and that no one else had won either for Indiana. On the last day of January, We received a white envelope from Bonnie plants addressed to Mr. Jon Keesling. Inside it stated that he had WON for the state of Indiana!!!! We were so thrilled. It said that we were to contact them and arrange to have a presentation ceremony at Jon's school. We are currently working on that. More info to follow.
Jon was thrilled and didn't quit grinning for several hours!