By Kate Miller, Managing Editor
Last year, when Lilly Heppermann was in third grade at Wright City West Elementary, she came home from school with a starter vegetable plant.“I was thinking, ‘What are we supposed to do with this?’ ” recalled her mom, Monica Heppermann. “But she was really excited about it. She wanted to go out and plant it.”It was March, though, and the ground wasn’t so cooperative.“I tried to dig it up but my husband (Bill) had to come and help,” Heppermann said.Lilly called it “cabbagie” and would ask her parents if they needed to do anything to help cabbage-y grow.Lilly, now 9, said they had to protect it from deer and insects. And while her classmates experienced doom with their cabbage plants, hers thrived.“It was easy to grow,” she said.What the Heppermanns didn’t know was that they had a whopper, award-wining cabbage growing in their yard. Lilly grew a giant, 26-pound cabbage and was recognized as a Missouri State Winner for the National Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program by the Missouri Agriculture Department.Her award is a $1,000 saving bond toward her education from Bonnie Plants.Each year Bonnie Plants trucks free “oversized” cabbage plants to third-grade classrooms whose teachers have signed up for the program. If nurtured and cared for, kids can cultivate, nurture and grow these giant cabbages.“The Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program is a wonderful way to engage children’s interest in agriculture, while teaching them not only the basics of gardening, but the importance of our food systems and growing our own food,” said Stan Cope, president of Bonnie Plants.“This unique, innovative program exposes children to agriculture and demonstrates, through hands-on experience, where food comes from,” he said. “The program also affords our youth with some valuable life lessons in nurturing, nature, responsibility, self-confidence and accomplishment.”Lilly was proud.“At the Christmas party, my mom showed pictures of it and people were saying, ‘whoa,’ ” Lilly said.As for cabbagie’s fate, it was cut up, placed in zip-close bags and placed in the freezer to be used in future recipes.“My husband eats the cabbage and I eat the cabbage. The kids don’t,” Heppermann said.She is happy Lilly had the expereince.“It was a great learning experience,” Monica said. “It gave her an extracurricular activity. It taught her you can excel at a lot of things, not just school.”The National Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program is free to any third-grade classroom in the country. Teachers can register now at www.bonnieplants.com for the 2017 program. To see the 2016 winners as they are announced, and learn more about the 2017 contest, visit www.bonnieplants.comLilly Heppermann, a student at Wright City West Elementary, grew a beautiful, humongous cabbage through National Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program. It weighed 26 pounds. Submitted photo.
