Junior Landcare Pumpkin Challenge

[Scarlett Patrick]

Participants will be sent a free packet of Yates pumpkin seeds and compete to grow the biggest, most enormous pumpkin in Australia. Like last year, you will be required to log on montly to register the weight of your pumpkin and upload a photo.

The Challenge will be opened to schools, youth groups (like scouts) and kids under 16

http://www.juniorlandcare.com/Challenges.htm

[Lyn H]

Yeah - sounds good. I'll give it a go. There's a great story our Year 1's have just finished reading called...........The Enormous Watermelon. Not quite a pumpkin, but I'm sure they'll go for it. I'll keep you in touch. Cheers, Lyn

[Mark Dekker]

Always seems so innocent doesn't it? Kiddies getting their hands dirty. Beautiful stuff but in reality nothing is free and the price paid for his little scam is kids programmed to buy Yates seeds (because obvioulsy they grow the biggest and best pumpkins kids!). Yates is owned by Seminis which was "acquired" by Monsanto. Nice. I just hope the parents have the awareness to supplement with say a nice non-hybrid variety from our very own Eden seeds.

[Elaine de Saxe]

Thank you for the tip, Mark.

I went to the Junior Landcare site and filled in a webform querying their use of Monsanto seeds and the message this sends to children.

Also note that they expect you to own a "cell" phone so if you don't (as I don't) just fill in any numbers, it will keep the software happy.

[christopher zane hart]

There are infact many things that are free , Sunshine is free , Rain is free , the birds and bees , perhaps not me , but if we can , let our kids enjoy there dirty hands free from fear of adult scams . I do agree that as with all things diversity is very important ,But i very much doubt that any child could be programmed in this way . It is more the market dominance of the large corporations that we need to fear , so if there is a equal or superior product , particularly from a local business , buy it , but by the same token if any business is ofering a good product with the qualitys you desire let your purchasing power shape the types of products we are offered by all business local , national & multinational .

[Florence]

Yates did a watermelon competition last year ~ I was thinking about getting Albert's Godson to participate and Albert didn't think it was a good idea because he have Eczema and may not be suitable for gardening. ^^ *shrug* oh well... .

I've used seeds from Yates, other cheap supermarket brands, and a few online seedshops, I found though Yates are the most expensive (generally) but not necessarily superior. You pay for the brands like all merchandise....

[Beryl Roberts]

I go with the other discussion pieces on the morality of pushing branded products on kids. But there is also the idea of growing the 'largest'. Size is not necessarily an indicator of quality, edibility or something to be valued. Obviously this is meant to be a competition and they look for a winner to promote their products - but encouraging the joy of producing a beautiful natural product that is nourishing to eat and enjoy is a far more worthy aim.
Keep gardening, Beryl.

[Mick Porter]

There's always going to be a problem with corporate sponsorship of stuff like this - trying to motivate kids to garden by giving away a Nintendo Wii is a bit of an issue. Likewise giant pumpkin growing is a minefield in its own right - especially when people start boosting their pumpkins with an IV drip of milk (try googling "milk fed pumpkins"). However, I still want my son to have a go but we'll keep on buying open-pollinated seeds from non-Monsanto sources.

[Donna]

Competitions are certainly a bit of a minefield (surely the prize won't be a Wii...) but with kids a lot of the time it is 'whatever works' and if it gets them into the garden it is really up to the parents to encourage their hobby and educate them about gardening. The parents are the ones that will be cheating if they use alternative methods to give their children an unfair advantage such as milk fed, or even non organic fungicides and fertilisers. In saying that, application of compost/ fertiliser could be seen as an unfair advantage by those that are new to gardening...

Also to promote the smaller companies that do support OP seed such as Eden/ Diggers/ Green Harvest etc it would have been a lot better in my mind if they were sponsoring the event rather than Yates - who I do have an issue with for the reasons that Mark pointed out.

As a seed snob, I would certainly prefer to see the OP heirloom/heritage seeds being used - it will be interesting to see what variety is sent out and I will be writing a letter as Elaine has to not only the organiser but the OP seed companies I have mentioned to recommend to them they look into it for next year.

[Mick Porter]

I'm pretty sure there was a page on their site yesterday listing a Wii as the prize for individuals - now it says that the info about prizes is coming soon.

[Scarlett Patrick]

I reckon open pollinated and heirloom seeds are better
Small is beautiful but in this case big is fun (and fun is a great way to learn)
The more kids who garden the better
The more kids and parents who don't normally garden that are attracted/ facilitated/ enabled to participate the better
The more corporations who make an attempt the better (until corporations law changes and they stop being required to be socio-pathic)

As far as I'm concerned initiatives that are somewhat green and appeal to a non-green audience are to be highly applauded - because these are the ones tackling the very difficult job of transitioning the vast majority of people who are completely ungreen (about 74% of current population).

As with any new journey, small steps are important - if we ask people to jump in at a cultural or knowledge deep-end they balk. I'd prefer they all started swimming :)

[Florence]

I agree, it's easier for big cooperations to get the audience ~ and I would think many people who got into open-pollinated and heirloom seeds started from buying well known brands. My first packets of seeds were from Yates.

[Mick Porter]

Definitely - my son has Asperger's, and to get him to get off the computer and come outside for a while and do anything at all in the garden takes quite a bit of work. So I was pretty keen to get him involved in this competition.