Deerfield Elementary fourth-grader Mattea Denney grew a 27-pound cabbage and, unlike Seymour Krelborn of "Little Shop of Horrors" fame, she didn't even have to feed it human blood.
Instead, the Cedar Hills girl grew her plant the legal way: She was careful to rid it of grasshoppers each day, and she let her family's sprinkler system do the rest.
Mattea is the Utah winner of the Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program, which aims at "growing a new generation of gardeners." She received a $1,000 education savings bond.
"I was just thrilled," said Mattea, who jumped up and down when she learned she had won. "I just wanted to call my grandma and grandpa."
Last year, third-grade teachers nationwide enrolled 1.5 million students in the free program run by Bonnie Plants, the largest producer of vegetables and herbs in North America. Each child received an O.S. (oversized) Cross cabbage seedling, which they took home and nurtured in their gardens. Seedlings can grow to be larger than a basketball and can weigh up to 50 pounds, said Joan Casanova, Bonnie Plants spokeswoman.
When the plants were fully grown and ready to become coleslaw, each teacher picked the best cabbage of the class, based on size and appearance, and sent a photo of it, alongside the proud grower, to Bonnie Plants. A winner for each state was randomly selected.
"The cabbage program is our way of sharing our love of gardening with children," said Dennis Thomas, of Bonnie Plants. "Because we believe so deeply in the joy and peace gardening can bring to the soul, we want to afford the opportunity to children to experience this same joy and sense of accomplishment."
It seems to have worked with Mattea, who developed a green thumb after watching her cabbage thrive in her Cedar Hills garden last summer.
"I liked to go and check on it every day and see how much it got bigger," said the now fourth-grader. "It's fun to grow your own food."
Mattea had such a blast growing her gigantic veggie that she plans to ask for a garden for her upcoming February birthday. The 9-year-old wants to grow flowers, carrots, corn, lettuce, watermelon and perhaps another huge cabbage.
The Deerfield Elementary student planted her seedling in May after her then teacher, Megan Mecham, enrolled her class in the program.
"When I first got it and put it in the soil, maybe three days later it got a lot bigger, and five days later it got bigger, and a week later it got even bigger," Mattea said. "By August it was huge."
The process was fascinating for a child who had never grown anything.
"I sat out there and watched it sometimes because it was really interesting, the way it grew," she said. "My friends said I had a gift of growing. I don't know why."
Mattea isn't sure why her cabbage grew to such gigantic proportions while her best friend's cabbage was eaten by bugs. She thinks planting it in a brick planter, instead of wood, might have done the trick.
Jamie Denney says her daughter is now "really interested in gardening."
"Mattea's interest was piqued because she had her own plant she was responsible for," said Denney, who was in charge of the cabbage's ultimate destiny.
Denney sawed into the enormous vegetable and turned it into a massive vat of coleslaw, much of which never made it onto a plate.
"We couldn't eat that much," Mattea said.
