Brown Elementary FFA students preparing to harvest a pumpkin patch they planted over the summer to provide specialty and carving pumpkins for the school’s upcoming Fall Festival.
Agriculture education teacher and FFA advisor Cindy Kimmer said the project began when students decided they wanted to create something unique for the festival, which has not been held in five years. Kimmer said the students spent their summer vacation planning the patch, selecting seeds, and preparing a section of the school’s football field for planting.
“Really all came about to be was our SAE project for our FFA chapter,” Kimmer said, “Which is Supervised Agriculture Experience. And they have just done a tremendous job with it. I couldn’t be more proud.”
Kimmer said the students worked during the early morning hours to avoid summer heat while laying landscape fiber and planting seeds at different times to accommodate varying growth rates. The patch includes traditional carving pumpkins, Cinderella pumpkins, and smaller varieties designed for younger students to carry.
“You just see accomplishment on their face,” Kimmer said. “It is a tremendous experience for them to be able to see actually put something in the ground as a seed and then come back and see the outcome and the harvest that’s going to be they’re able going they’re going to be able to do with this.”
Kimmer said the project integrates with classroom lessons regarding plant growth stages. While the students faced challenges with local deer eating some of the crop, Kimmer said the project successfully demonstrated the transition from seed to harvest.
“They can go into high school with the sense of accomplishment that they can do other things than just normal classroom lesson plans,” Kimmer said. “It shows them that they can do this.”
Kimmer said the community supported the effort through the donation of a tractor and diesel fuel to plow the field. Other grade levels at the school have also used the patch as an educational tool to observe how pumpkins change from green to orange as they ripen.
“Less than 2% of our population grow the food that we eat,” Kimmer said. “And a lot of people don’t even know how that food is grown. And this is just an experience that can show them where your Thanksgiving pumpkin pie comes from.”
Students will use an all-terrain vehicle funded through Career and Technical Education grants to transport the pumpkins from the field to the school lawn for display. The harvest is scheduled to take place in approximately two weeks.
The students will sell their pumpkins October 2 during the school’s first harvest festival in five years.