A 52kg whopper has been named the pick of the patch at a Timaru early childhood education centre’s pumpkin growing challenge.
Preschoolers at The Learning Barn began growing their pumpkins in October last year and submitted their gourd-geous grows for judging.
Prizes were awarded for the heaviest pumpkin, the best looking, cutest, best little pumpkin, most creative, most unique, best shape and best colour.
Learning Barn administrator Karen Tyree said the centre had themed the whole week around pumpkins.
‘‘We had Pumpkin Week, so we tried to get behind as many pumpkin-themed activities as we could. We had pumpkin art, pumpkin stories and pumpkin baking.
‘‘For the competition we had Ingrid [Davies-Martin] from the Timaru District Library come in to do the judging.
‘‘The kids have also been dissecting seeds out of the pumpkins and we finished off with a big hunt outside and everyone got a sweet treat to say well done for all their hard work.’’
Mrs Tyree said it was the second time they had done a big pumpkin grow.
‘‘It started two years ago. The previous owner [of the centre] did it after we did a scarecrow competition. She wondered what the next thing we could do was and came up with growing the giant pumpkins. That’s where it all stemmed from and it’s just kind of grown from there.
‘‘We planted the seeds with the kids in October and grew them to sprout size and then sent every child in the centre home with a seed in November. It was their job to grow the pumpkins on their own.
‘‘Of the 80 we sent home, we got almost half back, so it’s been pretty cool. The 52kg one is probably the biggest we’ve had, we did have some pretty big ones a couple of years ago, as well.’’
She said it was a cool experience for both the children and their parents.
‘‘The kids love it and I think it might be the parents that get more competitive. You’ve just got to look at the photos we have of the kids with their pumpkin to see how proud they are.
‘‘It’s great that it is something that families can do together.’’
