CAYCE, S.C. — The true farm to table test. Students at Lexington Two's Busbee Creative Arts Academy grew their own crop to sample in a contest Friday.
All 20 classrooms were a part of the effort making tasty treats from the sweet potato garden they maintain outside the school.
Today, those spuds were put the the test. The tables and plates were set for a feast.
"Last year we started the sweet potato pie contest because we grew 100 pounds of sweet potatoes last year. We were down to 75 this year," said Lisa Fisher, media specialist at Busbee Creative Arts Academy.
Students maintain the garden in an after-school club.
"We had to pull them and then they have to sit for like three weeks, so they get ripe and sweet and then we have to cook them and peel them and then mash them and then put all the pies together, so it's a long process, but it's definitely one of the more fun ones," Charlotte Wojcik, 7th grade student said.
The taste testers, both students and adults judged the pies.
"Since we do a lot of things together I said, 'Hey do you want to be a judge too?' and I said 'I love sweet potatoes so yes please," Dr. Janet Dedmon and Dr. Bridgett Wolfe, instructional tech coaches said.
The judges tell News 19 some pies were better than others.
"Most of them I would eat if I was served, except for one of them. It was the only one with a certain ingredient and no one really liked that one," Mackenna Maddox, 7th grade student said.
She's talking about the cream cheese, that sent one student to the bathroom for a trash can and left others with silly facial expressions.
"It went a lot better than we expected. I think they did really well on their measuring, so it was really nice," Dedmon said.
According to Lexington Two, they plan to continue hosting this sweet potato pie baking contest every year.