Lake Hamilton pumpkin project proves fruitful
A first- grade student at Lake Hamilton Primary School took advantage of an annual class activity and grew a set of pumpkins that her family put to use in creating a Halloween display.
First-grader Hayley Ferguson took two pumpkin seeds she received at school and grew nine pumpkins in her family’s garden this year. She is the daughter of Robert and Cissy Ferguson.
Kindergarten classes at the primary school take a field trip each year to Family Farm in Malvern. The class, taught by Martha Nolan, always picks out a class pumpkin.
Nolan taught Hayley Ferguson in kindergarten last school year. She also taught Robert Ferguson when he was in sixth grade.
The class removes the contents of the pumpkin and carves a jack-o-lantern face. Nolan washes and dries the seeds, which she saves for an activity in the spring.
Two seeds are planted in a plastic cup for every student. Nolan puts the students in charge of watering and nurturing their plants for the remainder of the year. Ferguson planted her seeds in her family’s garden. Her twin sister, Katelyn, helped take care of the plant.
“I put it in the garden and it grew,” Hayley Ferguson said.
“At first she thought it was a watermelon because she couldn’t remember what kind of plant it was,” Nolan said.
The Fergusons were confused when the green plant began to turn orange. It was not until Nolan saw a picture of the plant on Facebook and contacted Cissy Ferguson that they knew it was a pumpkin plant. Her parents joked that the plant was going to take over the garden because it grew so large.
“And then it turned into a pumpkin,” Hayley Ferguson said.
A plant usually produces three or four pumpkins. Ferguson says she didn’t know what to do when the pumpkins began to mature. She just wanted to watch them grow.
Ferguson harvested nine pumpkins. The family carved a jack-o-lantern out of one pumpkin. They used hay with the other eight pumpkins to create a display on their front porch. Ferguson said she was glad she planted the seeds in the garden and liked the pumpkin display.
A pumpkin can contain about 500 seeds. Nolan said her classes have collected more than 300 seeds from several of their pumpkins.
One of Nolan’s students grew several pumpkins a few years ago and gave her one. Pumpkins grew at the school before when someone threw a pumpkin over a fence behind the building. Nolan said pumpkins contain more seeds than most people expect.
“It would be interesting if we could find a place here at the school, like one of the flower beds, to plant one,” Nolan said. “We would have to keep it watered during the summer since you have to water pumpkins a lot, but maybe check with Mr. ( John) Smalling ( the school’s principal) to see if I could plant one, like in the flower bed, and see if we can get some pumpkins to grow.”