Middletown student grows award-winning cabbage

Bonnie Plants announced Mira Staats of Silver Lake Elementary School in Middletown as the Delaware state winner of the Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program.

Each year, Bonnie Plants trucks free O.S. Cross oversized cabbage plants to third-grade classrooms whose teachers have signed up for the program at www.bonnieplants.com. Through this program, kids can cultivate, nurture and grow giant cabbages, some tipping the scales at more than 40 pounds. 

The program awards a $1,000 scholarship to one student in each participating state.

At the end of the season, teachers from each third-grade 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. That student's name is then entered in a statewide drawing, and winners are selected by the agricultural commission in each of 48 participating states.

Green thumbs and perseverance can pay off, providing participating children with a great sense of pride and accomplishment, a humongous cabbage, and for the lucky state winner, the beginning of an educational fund for college. 

For more information and to see the 2018 winners, go to www.bonnieplants.com.