Visitors to the Rockingham County Fair’s horticulture building may have seen a massive head of cabbage, a two-foot-long cucumber, and a giant zucchini — all of which were grown by one little girl from Plains Elementary School.
Nine-year-old Alivia Scudder won multiple blue ribbons in the horticulture competitions, along with several second and third-place ribbons. Her cabbage, zucchini, and cucumber won first prize in the “largest” produce contest, where she competed with both kids and adults.
“I feel good,” Alivia said of winning. “I’m kind of used to it. I’ve only lost one year.”
Alivia said she became interested in gardening at the age of five.
“I just thought it looked really cool, and that it would be very fun,” Alivia said. “My grandma made me a tiny garden.”
Alivia’s parents live separately, her mother in Linville and her father in the Broadway-Timberville area. Still, they share custody of Alivia, and both are supportive of her interest in gardening. When she is with her dad, she spends a lot of time at her grandmother’s house in Singers Glen, tending the small garden her grandmother set aside for her.
Alivia waters the plants every day, weeds them, and even helps pick them this year. When she is at her mother’s house, her grandmother looks after the garden for her.
“My grandma does most of the fertilizing. We have to water mostly in the morning, because it is so hot,” Alivia said. “We try to weed after.”
Alivia said she remembers the day they were picking produce, and her grandma showed her the huge cucumber.
“I’m surprised how big the cucumber is, but not the cabbage,” she said. “My heads of cabbage are usually that big.”
Along with the large produce, Alivia entered plenty of other things into the fair, including two carrots twisted around each other — which won the “novelty” category — and berries, tomatoes, apples and cucumbers, some of which won ribbons in Junior Horticulture.
But her favorite thing to grow is cacti. At her dad’s house, her closet is full of cacti, and it is like a “mini greenhouse” with grow lights on the ceiling. She said cacti are her favorite thing to grow because of how low-maintenance they are, something that is important for her when she moves between houses every two weeks during the summer.
“I even have some cacti in the closet at my dad’s house,” Alivia said. “We put sprinklers and grow lights. We just let them thrive.”
Alivia is an only child, but she has many interests. She likes to perform science experiments, grow crystals, and even wants to take up gymnastics. Of her interests, helping in the garden is one of her favorites.
“She’s always helping me, and my mom and dad,” said her mother, Chenia Springer. “She eats tomatoes right off the vine.”
Alivia also has five cats and said her next venture in the garden will be to grow catmint for them.
One of the only things Alivia hasn’t been able to grow is lima beans, which are a food she says she doesn’t like.
“I just really had trouble. I couldn’t get them to grow,” Alivia said. “No matter how hard I tried, they didn’t grow.”
But Springer agrees that her daughter has a “green thumb.”
“I am most definitely proud of her, and her dad and grandma are proud of her, too. Anything she puts her mind to, she does good at it,” Springer said. “She likes to try her thumb at anything at least once.”
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