Weighing Produce

How much produce did you get by the end of the growing season? Keep track of the number of produce and weight of each vegetable or fruit as it is produced. You can keep a chart of all of this information to look back at after your garden stops producing. In the vertical columns list each specific plant by its species and an assigned plant number. Across the chart, number from 1 - 20. Each time you can harvest a particular plant's produce record the weight and length of the produce in the columns next to the plant name. Continue adding onto this chart throughout the growing season. Compare the produce from each plant. Which plant of each species grew the most produce? Which plant species provided the most produce? What was the heaviest piece of produce you weighed? What was the lightest? Will this data change how you plan your garden for the next growing season?

Mammoth Sunflowers

Have you ever seen a Mammoth Sunflower? They can grow to be from 6 to 12 feet tall! Ask an adult to help you measure the height of a mammoth sunflower in your garden. Now ask them to measure you. What is the difference in height between you and the sunflower? Are you half the height of the flower? Three-quarters?

Garden Perimeter

How you calculate the perimeter of your garden? You can use the information that you have to calculate the area of your garen. The perimeter is the added lengths of the boundaries of your garden. Below are some examples:

Rectangular Garden: 6 ft. +6ft. + 10 ft. + 10 ft. = 32 ft.

Square Garden: 7 ft. + 7 ft. + 7 ft. +7 ft. = 28 ft.

Circular Garden: 3.14 (pi) * Diameter = Circumference
3.14 * 10 ft. = 31.4 ft.

Mapping to Scale

Some people choose to keep gardening journals. If you continue gardening for several years, you will want to keep a map of your garden plot. This will help you remember where certain plants were, what your row arrangements were, and how many plants you began with, or even the size of the garden you began with. Draw a map, to scale, of your garden! This involves knowing the measurement and area of your garden beds.

Row Creativity

You can try different row arrangements depending on where you want to grow certain plants. Maybe you want to grow sunflowers or pumpkins in the back half of your garden, and produce in the front? If you have X number of plants, you can try different arrangements. Perhaps you have six plants. You could plot two rows of three plants each or three rows of two plants each. If you think about plotting your rows this way, it will give you more flexibility in your garden arrangement!

How Many Plants?

After you plant all of the seedlings and plants in your garden, you may not realize the huge number of plants you have in your garden! Try counting all of the plants you have, and also count them by the species of plant. You will probably be surprised at how many plants you actually have! After a few weeks, try counting the number of leaves, flowers, or upcoming produce you might have!

Zucchini Bread

One of the great things about having a vegetable garden is being able to eat what you grow! Here is a recipe to make some great zucchini bread. You will need to accurately measure these ingredients. Make sure you ask an adult for help!



INGREDIENTS
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts



DIRECTIONS
1. Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Cucumber Percentages

Here is an activity you can try with your plants. Just for this example, we will use a cucumber plant. The flowers plants produce will eventually become the fruit, or in this case, a cucumber. Gently and loosely place tape around the stems of flowers you find on your cucumber plant. In a few weeks, come back and look to see how many of the flowers are generating a cucumber. What percentage of the taped flowers now have fruit? For example, out of 5 flowers, now 3 have fruit growing. To find the percent, have the 3 exisiting fruit as the numerator and the 5 original flowers as the denominator. This equals 0.6, which is equal to 60% of the flowers producing fruit!

Leaf Geometry

If you take a look at the leaves of your plants, you will notice that they are symmetrical! Here are some examples of symmetrical leaves:

Pumpkin Leaf

Spinach Leaf

Sunflower Leaf

How Many Rows?

Here is a scenario about designing your garden. You start your seeds and 14 out of 20 have germinated into healthy seedlings. The seed package says that each plant should be spaced 10 inches for proper growth. The rows in your garden are 6 feet long. How many rows will you need to fit all 20 of the plants in your garden?

First, you should consider that each plant will need 10 inches between itself an other plants. It might help to draw out a diagram of the spacing to help you visualize the garden. Each row is 6 feet long, which is also 72 inches. While drawing the diagram, draw down a plant, then mark 10", mark another plant, 10" and so on, until you are at 72 inches. This will complete a row. You will find that each row will fit 7 plants. And you will need 2 rows to fit all 14 plants properly.

How Much Shade?

Some of the plants in your garden will not grow very well if they are in the full sun all day. You will need to do some research on the plants you plan to grow to see what kind of shade they will like best. What if one type of plant needs to be in part shade during the day? You should plot this area of your garden in a place which will be covered by shade, perhaps by a tree, for several hours during the day.

Here is an example of how you can determine what percent of your garden will be covered by shade:

The plants which will need shade need 50 sq. ft. of growing space in your 600 sq. ft. garden. What percent of your garden will be partly in the shade?

Divide 50 sq.ft. by 600 sq. ft. to determine the percent.
50 / 600 = 0.083333.
Move the decimal point two places to the right to convert the decimal into a percent.
You know that 8.3% of your garden will be in the shade.

Use of Honeybees in Gardens

You are probably very familiar with honeybees, how they gather nectar and produce honey. Did you know that if honeybees visit your garden, they will also help promote pollination in your plants? The flowers on your vegetable plants must be pollinated by insects such as honeybees so that the flower will eventually become a fruit. In order to make one pound of honey, honeybees must visit 2 million flowers. During one collection trip, a honeybee may visit 50 to 100 flowers. Does your garden have this many flowers in it? Can you estimate how many flowers there are in your garden?



Bees also use shapes called hexagons to store their honey in. This is a solid shape which allows for a solid hive structure.

The Golden Angle

As a growing plant rotates, it may demonstrate the Golden Angle in it's leaf or flower patterns. The Golden Ratio decimal is 0.618, which equals 222.5 degrees on a circle. The opposing angle is 137.5 degrees, which is known as the Golden Angle. This is the angle of rotation for flower petals, leaves, and other plant patterns. If a plant is demonstrating the golden angle, then there will be 137.5 degrees between each successive leaf as the plant continues to grow.

The Golden Ratio

Back to Fibonacci!

Plants turn in spirals as they grow, so that the cells are not produced in straight lines. It is better to grow in a circlular motion, because this is sturdier and more compact. The golden ratio for plant rotation is 1.61803... which is demonstrated in the leaf roations or flower patterns below:

When two successive Fibonacci numbers are divided, they equal numbers close to the golden ratio!

2 / 3= 1.5

3 / 5 = 1.666666

5/ 8 = 1.6

Garden Shapes

Geometry will also play a role in your garden's layout. Traditional hobby gardens are usually in an easy rectangle or square shape. Some gardens are created in concentric circles. Are you interesting in creating your garden as a circle? Use the plan below as an example:

Adding Compost

Compost is very important for a garden, because it can only benefit the growth of plants. Compost adds nutrients, organic matter, micro-organisms, reduces soil compaction, and promotes air filtration. If you add compost to a vegetable garden, you will have an increase in produce in number and size. The Intervale Compost Center in Burlington, VT supplies organic compost. The calculation for how much compost you should add to your garden is below:




*For vegetable gardens, they suggest 1-3 inches of compost over the soil. Use 2 inches.


*Area (Sq. Ft.) * Depth (Inches) * 0.0031 = Compost Needed (Cubic Yd.)





If your garden is 600 sq. ft. and you need 2 inches in depth of compost then:


600 * 2 * 0.0031= 3.72 cubic yds.

Area of Your Garden

Once you find a plot of land which would be suitable for your garden, you need to begin preparing. Whether there is grass growing on this plot or not, you should till and turn over the soil to help aerate. It is helpful to know the approximate size of your garden. You can use a tape measure to measure the lengths of a rectangular plot. If you multiply one side by the adjacent side, you can find the area.

For example, if your garden is 20 feet long and 30 feet wide, then the area of your garden plot is 600 square feet!

Buying Plants

There are times when it will be easier to buy plants instead of starting them from seed. It is much easier to buy tomato plants from a garden supply store, because they are already a decent size by this point. It is difficult to grow tomato plants, so it will be easier in the beginning if you buy them already started. You should buy more than one, because this will help with the pollination of the flowers, which will eventually produce the fruit. Perhaps you decide that you would like to buy three tomato plants from your local greenhouse. The plants are $9 each. How much will it cost to buy the plants?

Solution: 3 plants * $9 = $27

Fibonacci Phyllotaxis

Do you remember the Fibonacci numbers from earlier? There is another way that Fibonacci numbers relate to plant growth. There are two formations of leaf patterns which relevant to the Fibonacci numbers.

Spiral Phyllotaxis

Multijugate Phyllotaxis

Approximately 92% of plants with multijugate and spiral phyllotaxis have Fibonacci phyllotaxis. The leaves of plants grow in certain patterns which allow the leaves to access the most sunlight as possible. The leaves will rotate in clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The leaf arrangement for the sprial phyllotaxis example is 2/3. This means that there are two spirals are winding counter clockwise and three spirals are moving clockwise. The number of spirals will be two consecutive Fibonacci numbers.

Germination Data

When you plant your seeds, there is a high probability that not all of them will become plants in your garden. Not all seeds will germinate. Look at the data below for some common garden plants:

The Minimum Percent Germination of Crops

Bean, Snap : 75%
Carrot: 55%
Cucumber: 80%
Eggplant: 60%
Lettuce: 80%
Pumpkin: 75%
Sweetcorn 75%

What does this information tell you about what the seeds in your garden might do? Perhaps this will affect how many seeds you begin with, so that your ending result will have as many plants as you want. For example, you might plant more carrots that you would like to end with, because there is a possibility that only 55% of them will germinate. On the other hand, the germination rates for cucumbers and lettuce are the highest, so you will not have to compensate as much for seed loss.

Fibonacci Numbers

Fibonacci numbers are a pattern of numbers found in all aspects of nature. Some of the first few numbers are: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, and so on. You can find these patterns in the plants you will grow in your garden. You may find that that the flowers that bloom have a certain number of petals which will correspond to the Fibonacci number pattern. For example, the pumpkin flower at the right has 5 petals.

Germination

Depending on the type of plant, seeds require a certain number of days before they show above the soil. First the root must grown down into the soil to support the plant. After, the seedling begins to grow up above the soil. This germination period is a range of days depending on the plant and conditions. You can track when the seeds should begin sprouting by marking them on your calendar. For example, if you decide to plant sunflower seeds (which have a germination period of 7-14 days) on May 20th, then your seeds should begin to sprout somewhere between May 27th and June 3rd. If your seeds are not sprouting during this time period, this probably means there is something wrong with the seeds or the soil condition.

Germination Periods for Common Garden Plants:

*Carrots: 14-21 days

*Sunflowers: 7-14 days

*Radishes: 4-7 days

*Sugar Snap Peas: 8-12 days

*Cucumbers: 7-10 days

Spacing Plants

As your plants grow from seed to plant, their roots and leaves will require more space to grow properly. You should remember this as you plan out your garden.

* A popular style of planting vegetable gardens is called row beds. You line the plants and seeds in grows for them to grow. You need to place the seeds and plants the proper distance away from each other in the row. You should also space out the rows keeping this distancing in mind.

*The spacing depends on the type of plant. Broccoli plants should be spaced 15" apart. However, carrots can be grown much closer to each other. The rows should be "thinned" which means removing any plants which are too close to other plants. Any plant that is closer than 1/2" to another carrot should be removed. You can even eat these smaller carrots!

Measuring Rainfall

All of the plants in your garden will need water to grow! The general rule of green thumb for your plants is to supply them with an inch of water total over a week. Depending on how hot the weather is, you may need more water than this. In order to measure the rainfall your garden recieves from passing storms, you can create a rain gauge. An easy way to collect water is with a clear glass jar. This way you can easily see and measure the rainfall in the jar. If a passing storm gives your garden water, you do not have to water them that day!

*Keep in mind that if it was a quick downpour, much of the water will have run-off and may not have soaked into the soil in your garden. If you recieve a steady rain through-out the day, this will be much better for the soil's moisture.

Making Mud Pies

Before you plants seeds and begin to cultivate the soil in your garden, here is a recipe for making mud pies!

1) Find two cups of mud from the wettest soil in your garden. Remove as many of the sticks and rocks from the mud as you can find.

2) Put one cup of sandbox sand and one cup of the mud you found in a large bowl. Mix well!

3) Slowly add water and the second cup of mud until you create the best consistency. About 1 1/2 cups water is usually a good amount.

4) Put your mud in a pan and place in the sun to dry!

*Remember! You cannot eat mud pies!
*Try adding clay from the soil if you can find it.