Contest’s biggest, best cabbage worth $1,000 for Pink Hill student

Esmee Delien of Pink Hill Elementary School displays her scholarship check – her reward as the North  Carolina winner of the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program for 2019 – with Devin Kelly of Bonnie Plants and Jennifer Grubbs, the teacher who oversees the school’s gardening program, during a presentation at the  school recently.

Like a lot of third graders in North Carolina, Esmee Delien took home a cabbage plant donated by Bonnie Plants to see if she could get it to grow. Like no other third grader in North Carolina, Esmee grew the biggest, best cabbage in the state and won a $1,000 scholarship for her work.

Now a fourth grader at Pink Hill Elementary, Esmee was presented the scholarship check, a certificate proclaiming her North Carolina winner of the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program for 2019 and other cool prizes recently by Devin Kelly of Bonnie Plants. 

The presentation was made in front of all the third and fourth graders at Pink Hill and with Esmee’s parents, Chris and Jami Blizzard, and her grandmother, Cheryl Carawan, in the audience.

On stage with Esmee, Kelly, principal Lee Anne Hardy and worldview teacher Jennifer Grubbs, who supervises the school’s gardening program, was a large photo of Esmee posing with her giant cabbage – a 46-pounder.

“That’s the biggest cabbage I’ve ever seen,” Grubbs told the assemblage of students.

Esmee’s secret: “Miracle Grow and water for about 10 weeks,” she said. She also hand-picked bugs off the cabbage.

Bonnie Plants began the Third Grade Cabbage Program as a local gardening initiative in 1996 around Union Springs, Alabama, and expanded it into a national contest in 2002. Its aim is to teach third graders where food comes from through a hands-on experience and to encourage an interest in gardening.