Riley Olbrantz, 9, grows a big cabbage and gets famous

WAUSAU – Being a cabbage-growing celebrity is cool, but the fame can get a bit tiring.

If you don't believe it, just ask Riley Olbrantz, the winner of this year's Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program. Over the course of last spring and summer, Riley, 9, now a fourth-grader at Newman Catholic Elementary School-St. Anne in Wausau, grew a 28.6-pound cabbage.

Riley was one of 11,300 Wisconsin third-graders who took free cabbage plants home a year ago and planted them to watch them grow. The plants were the O.S. Cross variety, known for producing giant, oversized heads and were provided by the company to raise awareness about the plant. Wisconsin ranks first in the nation in terms of cabbage production for sauerkraut. Teachers submitted their class winners in the fall, and Riley was randomly selected as the overall winner.

She received a certificate of achievement and a $1,000 scholarship for the feat, given to her during a school assembly. She's been the subject of newspaper stories across the state, been on television twice and "I'm on Facebook, too," she said. It's all all right, she said, but after a while, "it's like 'Oo-kaaay. I just want to be left alone."

When Riley got the little cabbage plant a year ago, it was in a tiny pot. She's the daughter of Katrina and Joseph Olbrantz, and they all transplanted it to a starter pot and put it in a window. It soon outgrew that, and they all dug out a square area in a corner of their west-side Wausau yard, and put wire around it to protect it from rabbits.

As it grew and grew, the whole family took an interest. Finally, in June, Riley and Katrina harvested the cabbage because it was outgrowing its plot. "We actually could have left it grow for another month," Katrina said. "But I didn't know. ... It took over, and I said, 'Let's just cut it.'"

The plant was bigger than Riley. Katrina sawed it down with a large serrated bread knife.

The problem? Nobody in the family likes cabbage, except Katrina, and even she's not super keen about the vegetable. Fortunately, their neighbors across the street love it.

"We're German," said neighbor Kathy Frederick, 66, who agreed to take the cabbage. "We love cabbage. We eat it sweet and sour, creamed and as sauerkraut."

But Kathy did not see the cabbage before agreeing to take it, and the Olbrantzes were vague about the size of the plant they were giving away.

"It was huge," Kathy said. "I almost died when I saw it."

"We told her she had to take it," Riley said. "We told her, 'You already said yes!'"

Kathy made several meals of sweet-and-sour cabbage, and gave a bunch of the plant to her mother-in-law who canned four pints of the vegetable.

"It was good," Kathy said. "It was very good."

Riley said it was fun growing the plant, and she'd like to grow more monster veggies, but no more cabbage. Maybe zucchini, Katrina suggested. "They like it when I shred it and put it in things," Katrina said.

Keith Uhlig can be reached at 715-845-0651. Find him on Twitter as @UhligK .