Alright, so it would not hurt these particular plants, good. At home I wated months before I saw any sign of crop but today I can speed up the process. "Cretem Acceleratus" Come, on, come on, I want to see you a tomatoe vine and grape vine and giant sunflowers. And just like that she saw the plants begin to grow from the ground into large vines and one giant sunflower. She stared up in awe. It was so cool to see a plant blossom like that but it did not feel at all the same as when she saw the first buds of plants she tended to at home much after planting. I barely had to work for this but overall it still was a preety cool experience.

Patroclus was more than pleased with his patch, his seeds had blossomed beautifully and the growl in his stomach, told him that it was lucnh time!

"Sir, are we going to share our produce with the class?" the boy asked, his head filling with vision of a school picnic! "I am more than happy too!"

Sitting there Patroclus smiled as his plants finally stopped growing, they were ripe for the picking!

"Ah, you're a natural at Transfiguration then," Sage complimented with a smile as he admired Alex's work. "Well done!"

And Zane had actually tried the spell before! It was nice to hear that some of the younger ones were already experimenting with Herbology.

"Nice try," Sage smiled encouragingly, stopping by Emmy as she worked. Her raspberries turned out a lot better than her corn he noticed.. "some crops are just a little harder than others thats all, but good work!"

"I assure you, it just works on the seeds," the Professor confirmed.. was Treyen worried about the Earthworms? Worried that they might create giant, mutant worm creatues..? Hm.


What the...

When he turned around to observe more of the students, Sage came face to face with one of the BIGGEST pineapples he'd ever seen. Really, it was huge. Abormally huge.

But it was IMPRESSIVE.

"Wow," the Professor breathed in awe, running a hand across the rough surface. "How did you manage this? What were you concentrating on, Destiny?" He was curious!

Giant pineapples and mutilated watermelons.

His head tilted to one side as next, he spotted Evelyn's creation. "Uhm..." he scrutinized the poor fruit before simply looking to the next student..


"... of course!" Sage grinned at the enthusiastic looking Patroclus. "The next step in the process is harvesting," he said to the class, giving his wave a wand and conjuring a small wicker basket for each of them. "After the harvesting has taken place, the crops are used for various different things.. they can either be eaten how they are, or used as an ingredient for something else."

Anyway, what he was trying to get at was..

With yet another wave of his wand, a small workspace was created to one side of the patch of crops. The workspace was complete with lab type wooden desks, small steel cauldrons, wooden spoons and big bags of sugar. There were a lot of empty, clear jars too.. "So, who likes jam?"

Trixie raised her hand. It was a slightly random question but what the heck. She would go along with it. Seeing as she was a vegan and Jam was basically fruit and preservatives, she was fine with jam. "Er...I do professor" she stated. Especially strawberry jam. Mmm... That tasted niiiiice. "It's one of the things i can actually eat" she giggled. Yumm... Were they gonna make jam? Eep. That was..well pretty cool actually. Her mum made homemade jam and she loved it.

She looked at all the equipment that had appeared. The cleared workspace and the jam jars. It looked even more like that was what they were going to do. And the Cauldrons. "It depends what type of Jam we're making though...." she giggled. For there were some types she didn't like. Blackcurrant for instance. It was just something Trixie was fussy with.

Alex liked Jam but it honestly depended, "I like it but it depends, for example I can't eat Raspberries because i'm allergic." Alex stated to the Professor after raising her hand, she didn't want a repeat of what happened last time she ate a rapsberry. But this would prove interesting, making Jam can't be much different then making a potion. She did blush lightly at the sort of compliment stating she was a natural at Transfiguration, it would explain how easy it was for her after all.

Sweet Merlin!

What did she do!?

At least the mutated pineapple was better than having a mutated earthworm attack her! It wasn't like the pineapple had TEETH..teeth that could BITE, RIGHT!? Glancing at Evelyn as she scooted away, and slipped on that really random pile of rocks, Destiny jumped to her feet, "I don't know." she murmured in reply to Evelyn's question, and took a few steps AWAY from the monstrosity.

She really didn't want to find out the hard way whether or not the thing had teeth.

As the pineapple finally seemed to stop growing, she let out a breath of relief. The thing had FINALLY stopped! Looking up at the fruit, she gave a nervous laugh, "I don't even like pineapples." She should have planted a watermelon like Evelyn did.

Or maybe not..

Tearing her eyes from her pineapple, which was an EXTREMELY hard thing to do, she glanced down at her friends..square watermelon. "That's odd."

Odder than a ginormous pineapple, that's for sure.

Eeeeep!

More questions.

Only instead of being interrogated by Evelyn, she was being INTERROGATED by the Professor. At least he didn't seem upset that she had just created a monster. "Umm, well, I wasn't really concentrating on anything." Cue another nervous laugh, "I was trying the spell and I didn't get it right the first time, so I gave my wand a rough shake and next thing I know, I am looking up at the BIGGEST pineapple in the history of PINEAPPLES!"

She should have learned NOT to shake her wand by now..

There was no way!

Dodson could NOT be serious about them making jam out of their fruit. First, Destiny would NOT even be able to cut the pineapple, and second, the thing was SO big, it should be on display for the WHOLE school to see. Hehe, they should have had a fruit growing CONTEST! Poor Evelyn, and her square watermelon would have definitely lost. Glancing down at the basket the Professor conjured for them, she raised her hand high, "Professor! I'm going to need a bigger basket."

Or a smaller pineapple.

Holy mother of Merlin, that was a HUGE pineapple. What the heck was Destiny thinking when she cast that spell? Looking back at her own little patch of land she still had nothing growing there. Then again she still hadn't cast any spells on it either. She had been too busy watching everyone else.

Not wanting to get too far behind in class she pointed her wand at the area she had planted her seeds, "Cretum Accelaratus" she said. Before she knew it there were tomatoes, green peppers and corn ready to be harvested.

Taking a basket the professor conjured she started to ick her green peppers and put them in the basket. Nex was the corn then some tomatoes. She looked over to Destiny laughing. "I want to see you get THAT in a basket," she said nodding her head towards that ginormous pineapple.

Then the professor conjured up what looked like an outdoor classroom/kitchen. Did he expect them to make jam with the foods they had grown? If so there was no way Marie was going to be doing that. Who would want to eat jam made from tomatoes. He should have been a bit more specific when he told them to pick a fruit to grow.

Tomato jam... YUCK!

Carter looked over at Destiny's and Evelyn's creations. Hoping that that would not happen to him, he aimed his wand at the spot where he planted watermelon. "Cretum Accelaratus" he said thinking about full grown watermelon. He watched in amazement as a vine began to grow. Then little bulbs. Soon the little bulbs exploded into full grown watermelons!

He then turned his wand to his potatoes to try his luck with that. They too grew to full-sized potatoes. Well... at least he thought they did. Potatoes did grow underground. But the leaves died, so that was a good sign.

Next was the corn. They grew just like the professor's did.

Now it was time to gather his produce.

Gold, always a firm believer of 'letting nature run its course' [yes, the words weren't hers, thank you very much] had never tried this spell before. It sounded extremely simple, right now, and she said the incantation twice over in her head, before she decided she might as well give it a try. It couldn't possibly do much harm to the seeds.

Or Professor Dodson wouldn't have taught it to them, right?

Cretum Accelaratus.

Focus, she told herself, as she cast the spell non-verbally. She had gotten much, much better at non-verbal magic, this year, and she could do pretty much all of her spells that way, now. Non-verbally. But this was the first time she was trying this spell, so Gold couldn't be sure what the results would be. She focused, focused really, REALLY hard, imagining the stalks shoot up, imagining the leaves, the beautiful blossoms --- and then, quite abruptly, she felt the soil shake loose.

MY GOD.

These strawberries were HUUUGE.

"Professor!" She waved a cheerful hand in the air. Each of the strawberries was the size of her hand - hand, not palm - some even bigger, and Gold considered this quite an achievement. "I have biiig strawberries, here!" She wanted to dip them in chocolate!

YUMM.

Did they get to make sommme?

Because Gold waned to!

She raised a hand. "I do, sir," she said. "Specific kinds," she added, for clarification. There were some types that she didn't eat, if she could help it. Or even go near. "Professor, does this mean we're going to make or test jam, right now?" Might as well ask.

Ohhkay. This was a bit wonky, making plants grow faster than they should. Abby was looking around at some of the other students who had already performed the spell on their crops, it was strange to watch them grow right before her eyes. It was especially strange watching that one surprisingly LARGE pineapple shoot up from the ground.

Turning to her patch, Abby wiped the soil from off her hand on her thigh and pulled out her wand. "Cretum Accelaratus," she said, pointing her wand at her patch. Waaaaait...

Oooh! The soil was shifting ever so slightly. Briefly, she wondered if her carrots would grow as huge as that pineapple.... Nope. Darn. All her crops were fairly normal-sized. Guess she wasn't really concentrating hard enough. However, those tomatoes were... good-sized. Abby bent over to weigh one the size of a football in her hand.

Jam? Huh?

"I suppose I like jam," she said, shrugging. Errr, strawberry jam, that is. Abby hoped that she didn't have to make jam out of her tomatoes. That would be kind of weird. Sauce, maybe. But not jam.

"Jam is nice," Eirian muttered as she watched her own plants - now aided by the Cretum Accelaratus charm - grow. These pineapples... They didn't look as nice as she would have wanted them to. A slightly greenish yellow, though overgrown, it wasn't very appetizing. And the spines looked pointier and... deadlier... than they should have. But pineapples couldn't be poisonous, so she didn't worry too much. "Professor, what are ze zings zat could 'ave gone wrong with zis growing spell...? Side effects, you know, even zough ze plants are not magical..."

Jayce listened intently as the professor spoke. 'Who likes jam? What kind of question was that? Everyone has to like jam. Jay himself preferred Jelly of course, but Jam was just as good in his opinion. Jay shot his hand up excitedly. "I like jam professor!" he shouted happily. Mmm. Jam. He could eat that stuff forever. It was so yummy. he smiled over at Eirian, remembering the time that they had gone to the Great Hall, just before heading up to the room of requirement. He had practically coated every sort of bread he could find in jam. Now, that, was a good day. Well at least in his opinion it was.

Eirian felt eyes on her and noticed that Jay had appeared and was sitting rather far away. Another place she had saved, wasted. Pulling her cloack around her, shivering, even in the greenhouses, she prodded her abnormal pineapple with her wand and waited for a reaction. Nothing. Good... it was still completely a plant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Waterloo

"... of course!" Sage grinned at the enthusiastic looking Patroclus. "The next step in the process is harvesting," he said to the class, giving his wave a wand and conjuring a small wicker basket for each of them. "After the harvesting has taken place, the crops are used for various different things.. they can either be eaten how they are, or used as an ingredient for something else."

Anyway, what he was trying to get at was..

With yet another wave of his wand, a small workspace was created to one side of the patch of crops. The workspace was complete with lab type wooden desks, small steel cauldrons, wooden spoons and big bags of sugar. There were a lot of empty, clear jars too.. "So, who likes jam?"

"Sir I love jam!" Patroclus grinned as he prepared to harvest his crop!

Placing a firm hand around the lusicous green stalks of one of the carrots Patroclus gave a gentle tug, and was blown away by the largeness of the carrot that popped out of the soil. "Opps must have willed them to grow that that bit to much" the boy muttered to himself, "Oh well," he shrugged as he placed the carrot on the ground beside him.
Patroclus pulled the others and laid them along side before turning his attention to his rockmelons!

They were beautifully round, and felt perfectly ripe to the touch, so using his wand Patroclus spoke Diffindo and cut four large ones from their places on the vine.

"Aguementi", Patroclus allowed a gentl stream of water wash the dirty off the melons and the carrots, then placed them all in his basket. Using Diffindo again the boy cut a few stalks of wheat.
"What to make, what to make?"

AWEsome!

So, no need to worry about anything then. Perfect...just worrying about getting the radishes growing up nicely.

AND..

AND.....

...the cherry tree, because of all the things he'd planted that was the only one that could be eaten without much work.

"Cretum Accelaratus!" he said again, pointing the wand at what he hoped were the radish seed, and watching intently as the earth began trembling juuuuuust a tiny bit. Ooooooh, this was brilliant! And then a little leaf came out, he'd gotten the seed right, that ought to be a radish leaf! Not that he knew.

Focusing again, pointing wand. And...voila! He had fully grown radishes in there! Or so he hoped, because radishes were actually beneath the ground, so, there was no way of seeing that until he'd taken one out.

Cherry tree! Cherry tree!

"Cretum Accelaratus!" this time, the confidence was more than present, because he'd grown rice and radishes before, and with just pointing once at the seed (or the space the seed was supposed to occupy) the earth trembled slightly, and things began to grow! Branches and stuff! Treyen, of course, had to take some steps away in order to get a full view of the regular-sized cherry tree growing in front of him. He smiled, this was fun.

And what was that thing about jam? Yeah, he liked jam. But, wait a minute! He was NOT going to be cooking rice! Cooking! Yes, he didn't sign up for that.

Fail.

Dianna tried one more time.
"Cretum Accelaratus." Yes! It worked and now she had a small pumpkin in front of her.
~
Hearing jam she immediately sat up.
"I do Professor!" she eagerly said waving her hand back and forth like a crazy person. This is what she needed. Jam.

"Ooh, I like jam Professor! Are we going to be making it ourselves?"
Emmy asked, positively bubbling over with excitement.

Jam? Oh great, something to get sticky and messy with! "Professor, what about the vegetables and grains? You can't really make them into Jam can you?" Zane asked while raising his hand.

That giant pineapple was a work of art and it would be a shame to destroy it. Surely it was the biggest pineapple in the Great Britain! And all she'd done was give her wand a shake!? Hm.

"It's a shame to do this," he sighed a little, but raising his wand to cast a shrinking spell anyway. The ground shook a little, as the giant fruit rapidly shrunk in size and soon they were looking at healthy sized looking pineapple.

There. Now it should fit in her basket.


"Nice healthy looking strawberries you got there," Sage noted, quite impressed by the juicy looking fruits Gold had grown. "You're sowing must've been top notch." MMM, he wanted to steal one. "And yes indeed, I think those strawberries would make a FANTASTIC jam, don't you?"

"Well, there's not too much that could've gone wrong other than creating giant monster fruits," Sage said, glaning over to Destiny's normal sized pineapple now. He sort of wished they could've kept it there.. all giant. Like a garden feature. But it wouldn't be long before it starting going all mouldy.

Eirian's own pineapples were looking a little on the greenish side, and the Professor tilted his head to one side. "If something DOES happen to go wrong however," which is clearly had here, "it means your sowing wasn't up to scratch. Did you plant the seeds deep enough?"

"I'm sure you could make them into a jam," Sage said thoughtfully, "I can't imagine that jam tasting awfully nice though.." Hmm, that was something to try.. wheat jam.

"But no, we'll just be using the fruits we grew for the last part of the class.. and you're free to use the veggies and grains you used however you please." So, time to get moving on!

"If you've still got some crops to grow or harvest, go ahead and finish what you're doing," the Professor explained, "but for those of you that have finished, I'd like you to move over to a cauldron at the workstation."

With another wave of his wand, scruffy handwriting appeared on the blackboard he'd conjured for the lesson outside. "Now there are many different methods for making jam, but today I'd like us to follow this one.. see how you do making jam from those little seeds you planted. If you're fruit didn't turn out well enough to make a jam, I'm sure there are people willing to share theirs!" Or they could just try growing more..

"Cretum Accelaratus!" and her strawberry patch grew. Picking up as much strawberries as she can she looked up at the instructions on the board.

Quote:

* Use Aguamenti to wash your fruit - make sure to get rid of any dirt.

Time to clean!

Oooooh. Time to make Jam. Yummy. That what taste good. Although she wasn't too sure Strawberry and Corn Jam would taste too good, so maybe she'd just stick to using the strawberries from her crop, seeing as she wnated to make nice tasting jam, becuase she was perfect like that. With a smile, she wandered over to one of the stations, and set her straberries down next to them. They looked really yummy, and she really wanted to eat them right now, but she had to use them for the jam.

The blonde looked up at the instructions. Okay. So she had to clean the strawberries first. "Aguamenti" She said, holding her wand as she pointed at the different strawberries. Now they were all clean, so there would be no dirt in her amazing jam. Because it was totally going to be amazing.
Next was cutting them up, and removing the leaves. That should be fun. Carefully she set about cutting each strawberry up into small pieces.

Gold gave Professor Dodson a simple, little smile. "I'm not a bad gardener," she said. She petted a strawberry. Strawberry jam. YUMMM. It would be a shame not to slice the strawberries, and eat them like that, though. Maybe with a mug of hot chocolate.

ZOMG! Gold wanted chocolate-dipped strawberries!

"I'm sure they will, sir."

Speaking of strawberries, she still had to work on the other two types of seeds she had sown. Vegetable first, then. Cretum Accelaratus, Gold cast quietly. She waited for the familiar, low rumble, the sudden disturbance, soil shaking loose as the plant shot up. ZOMG! She could pick the pods, now! Gold gathered them, squishy ladyfingers.

She cast the spell one last time, to get a fair amount of oats. Could they make oat-bread? Oats in their husks. YUMMY. Gold had a special love for the grain, perhaps because it was mentioned in Jane Eyre, and she had fallen in love with that book - and oats, and oaten, and oat-bread and... You get the gist, right? - the first time she had read it.

What? That isn't a strange reason, to like a cereal!

... and this class = FUN.


PURRRFECTTT.

Gold, what she had sown taken care of, could finally make some delicious jam. Strawberreh jam. This was going to be a blast! The sixth year skipped over to the workstation, and took up a place at the cauldron next to Brody's. She smiled at her bestie, before focusing a clear, green gaze on the blackboard, to take in the instructions.

Then she raised a hand.

"If there's time left after we've made the fruit jam, sir, can we try making jam with our veggie or grain?" She asked, politely. Lady finger jam. That, Gold didn't even want to consider [Lady fingers can make for amazingly tasty dishes, but Lady finger jam? Gold was pretty sure she wouldn't want to try that] but oat jam, she could give a shot.

Alex snorted picking her apples.. seriously Apple Jam hmm.. that didn't sound so bad actually. she also made sure to pick everything else, didn't want to forget it after all now.. focusing on her fruits, her apples she casted the water charm to get rid of any possible dirt while looking through them all to get rid of any that might have any bruises or worms inside of them she honestly did a good job on her apples. "What number of fruit are we going to use for the Jam?" Alex asked raising her hand, "Are we going to use them all or just a few of them?" Alex added on just in case the Professor-Who-Was-Afraid-of-Slytherins didn't know what she meant.

Glancing over to the Professor, Evelyn raised a brow at his reaction to her mutated watermelon before shrugging her shoulders and going back to, trying to focus on the task at hand. Yea, she didn't know what to make of it either....

Moving her attention back to the GIANT pineapple, which finally stopped growing thank Merlin, Evelyn shook her head in disbelief as she just, stared at the thing. Okay, that could feed the entire great hall, AND the staff! For at least breakfast, lunch, and dinner. AT LEAST!

Actually, staring at the giant pineapple and thinking that thought, made her proud of her mutated watermelon. It was the right size at least and would probably taste just the same. The shape was just...the odd part about it. Or maybe, square watermelon tasted different? She didn't know since she never tried it. She had watermelon that had been previously cut into squares, but not watermelon that was grown in the shape of a square.

Weeeiiirrd....

Turning back to her other two piles of seeds she planted, vowing that she would try her hardest to not make them all abnormal looking, she concentrated for a moment, just WISHING that the seeds were turn into sweet potatoes. Please, please, please...

"Cretum Accelaratus." she said, pointing her wand at the second pile of seeds. The familiar small leaf popped up out of the ground, making her concerned and nervous for a moment. She didn't pick up anymore watermelon seeds though. These should be sweet potatoes... ohhhh. No, the plant thingy was turning out to be different.

And...normal looking!

Well, then again, it was only the plant on top of the ground that looked normal. Who knows what the actually sweet potato underground looked like. Deciding to NOT check at the moment, Evelyn moved her attention to the next pile of seeds, glancing over to the professor for a moment when he started on the next step of instructions. Yea, she'd get to that later. For now though, the oat seeds...

"Cretum Accelaratus." Once again, some type of small thing popped up immediately out the ground, but slooooowwlly growing into what she believed was some kind of oat plant thing. Brown? Was it supposed to be brown?

She'd never seen how oats were grown. How was she supposed to know if she did it right?

Oooh. Her bestie was next to her, and that was totally awesome. Haii Golddy. Brody beamed at her best friend, as she saw that she would be making jam with strawberries too. Ooooh. This would be totally fun to see who could make the best jam. She had a feeling it would be Goldy really, but her vainty also said it could be her. But if so....she needed to hurry herself along.

Looking away from Goldy, she continued to chop the strawberries into small squares, making sure that they were alll kind of the same size. She was sort of a perfectionist like that. She was tempted to eat them too, hence why she was trying to make them all perfect, so that she could be distracted from eating them heh. Although after she had finished chopping them, she did pop one into her mouth, with a little grin. Mmmm. It was yummy. hehe.

Awww. She pouted at what the next instruction was. She didn't want to crush her pretty squares of strawberry yummyness. Couldn't she just eat them instead, because there was going to be lots of other flavours of jam, nobody would miss her strawberry jam. Maybe later. She placed the knife onto the counter carefully, before gently placing all the little squares of strawberries into the cauldron, careful not to drop any onto the floor. She really didnt want to drop any onto the floor, because that would be such a waste of the beautifully tasting fruit. Now she pouted. She had to crush them now, and it was so horrribble. No faiir No Faiir. But the again she wanted to taste the pretty jam too, so she began crushing, some what rather slowly though.