Hey kids, grow a cabbage

I’m a member of myriad organizations but one of my favorites is the national Home Gardening Club.

It has just announced the annual Third-grade Cabbage Program, which awards a $1,000 scholarship to one youngster in every state. Why not a youngster who reads this new gardening column in The Lakeville Journal?

Throughout the country 1,200,000 third-graders will be  competing. That’s enough by the way I count to make it an Olympic event.

So fellows and girls, hop into the family car and persuade Mom or Pop to drive to the nearest nursery and pick up a packet of cabbage seeds. Or order seeds from a catalog.

They can be started inside in seed planters in April for transplant outside in May, or you can wait until the weather warms up and plant the seeds directly in the soil up until mid-late June.

The bigger, i.e. huge, cabbages are usually winners, but well-grown beautiful cabbages have also walked away with the coveted prize.

Why cabbages? Why not? Every ethnic group grows them. They are the basis for sauerkraut, a favorite of the Germans and other northern Europeans.

The Koreans have a  national pickled cabbage dish called kimchi.

Stuffed cabbage is called holishkes in Yiddish. The Irish and English dote on bubble-and-squeak and colcannon. Both are variations of sliced cabbage cooked with potatoes.

Stuffed cabbage is a favorite in America and the Balkans. On Dec.19, 1908, a whopping total of 80,191 stuffed cabbage rolls was made in the Macedonian city of Prilep, a world record.

And to wind up this paean to the cabbage, the French use it as a term of endearment: mon petit chou, or my little cabbage!

Cabbage is very healthy but we won’t go into that now. Let’s wind up with a final call to arms: Third-graders, think and grow cabbage and start a lifetime of gardening.

The contest is sponsored by Bonnie Plants. E-mail me for further information at Barnlash@optonline.net.

“Out Back With Barney†will appear regularly. When Laschever gets mad he also writes  a Lakeville Journal column called, “The Ranting Retiree.â€