With its leaves spread out, John-Micheal Farthing’s prize-winning cabbage is twice as wide as he is.
The Arkansas Agriculture Department randomly selected the third-grader's entry as the winner of Bonnie Plants’ $1,000 prize last week.
At more than 17 pounds, his is a respectable cabbage. But the O.S. Cross seeds sent to third-grade classrooms across the country each year can grow even bigger, producing colossal, oversized heads at 30 and even 40 pounds.
The cabbage competition began in 1996 when Bonnie Plants delivered its first batch of free seeds to third-grade classrooms near its headquarters in Union Springs, Ala. Twenty years later, more than 1 million children take the seeds into their care each year.
Last spring, Farthing was one of 24,894 Arkansas students who spent weeks fertilizing and watering their seeds, guarding against the brown moth, the white moth and the worms that love to feed on cabbage leaves.
At the end of the growing season, Farthing’s 17.5-pound cabbage was selected as the best of all the cabbages grown in the third-grade class at Mountain Springs Elementary in Cabot.
His $1,000-prize will be applied to his college fund.