School smashing pumpkin records
It was obvious that the soil is very fertile in the Ruahine district when the school held its pumpkin festival on Thursday April 12.
Either that or there were very special seeds and equally special techniques used to grow the giant pumpkins on show.
It was all three factors — good manure-enriched loam, giant seeds from King Seeds and lots of tricks too secret to divulge.
The biggest pumpkin, weighed at 61.5kgs and grown by the Filer family, required two men to lift it onto the scales.
There were other good results from seedlings germinated by Bart Bowie.
There were also prizes for the best dressed pumpkins, ugliest pumpkins, best pumpkin dishes, best poems about pumpkins, best pictures of pumpkins and best pumpkin harvest costumes.
Each class strutted its stuff, winning poets read their poems and the teachers all joined in a hoe-down before the winners were announced.
It was new principal Sarah McCord’s first pumpkin festival and she loved it, especially tasting of the pumpkin dishes.
Winner of the Best Pumpkin Dish was the Bowie Family with its pumpkin ice cream, second was Alix Baker with her Pumpkin Whoopie Pie, third equal was Maddie Brooks also with Pumpkin Whoopie Pie and Rylee and Mason Prenter with their Pumpkin Bliss Balls.
It was a great celebration of the autumn harvest enjoyed by students, at least half of whom were in costume, staff and a large group of parent visitors.