Gardening and Math?

This year we decided that due to rising food costs we were going to try our hand at gardening once again and this time we were going to invest the necessary time and money into the prep work so that our garden would, Lord willing, produce a harvest of veggies rather than weeds and an insect buffet as had happened in the past. We did lots of research and decided to go with the square foot method. So, for all you homeschoolers out there who are wanting to put in a spring garden while at the same time learning about not only botany but math, I encourage you to read on.

Square foot gardening is based on most beds being 4' x 4' giving you 16 sq. feet to work with. That right there is a small lesson in AREA.

After daddy built our boxes my 6 year old son and 8 year old daugter measured (there's a lesson) and marked of our boxes at one foot intervals all the way around. They then hammered in nails at each mark and used string to make a grid giving 16 squares to plant in. Here's where some practical math skills come into play. One box we planted full of bush beans and black-eyed peas. Here's a question:

If we plant 4 seeds in each square and there are 16 squares in this box, how many bean plants will this box hold?

More problems:

*4 squares are planted with cucmbers. If each plant produces 8 lbs. of cucumbers during the growing season, how many pounds will we have harvested?

One 4X4 box is planted with tomaotes. If each tomato plant produces 10 tomatoes, how many tomatoes will we have harvested?

I'm sure you are seeing my point. If your children like mine say things like, "Math is dumb. I'm never going to use this stuff....", it is easy to show them how practical math is for so many things.

We have also been doing the Exploring Creation through Botany study this year from Apologia Ministries. What great prep work for our gardening project. Back when we started the study we didn't have any plans to garden this spring. God is so good to have prepared us this way. We've been seeing what we learned about His glorious creation at work throughout the whole process.
Psalm 19 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands."

I'd like to paraphrase and also say that "The plants and vegetation declare the glory of God: the flowers proclaim the works of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowlege. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world."