Who's having a feast in the garden?

SOMETHING has been nibbling all of our hard work! Here's what's left of our corn and cucumbers...

 

Math for Gardeners!

Is your math brain ready for school? Brush up on your math skills and see if you can do these math problems for gardeners!

Someone has been busy looking for "end of season" garden tool sales! She found lots of kid sized gloves!
They cost 6 dimes each. How much did each pair of gloves cost?

Someone also spent a Saturday washing off all the tools we already had. Now they're nice and clean and ready to be used!

Lots of medium sized gloves were also on sale! They were the same price as the kid sized gloves. Someone bought
20 pair. How much did they spend for all the medium sized gloves?

These are the new hand rakes that were in the "sale" bin. The secret shopper bought 4 reds, 7 greens, 5 blues, and 4 yellows. How many new hand rakes were bought in all?

These are kneeling pads, so we won't hurt our knees on the wood chips when we work. They cost $1 each. The secret shopper bought 20 kneeling pads. What was the total cost of the kneeling pads?

Groundhogs: Pests or Gardeners? By K.Miller

How Groundhog's Garden Grew
By Lynne Cherry

Reviewed by K. Miller

This story is about a groundhog who learned how to garden. First he was stealing from a neighbor's garden and the animals caught him. They told him to grow his own garden and he said he didn't know how. So, a smart squirrel taught him how to grow a garden. Read more and find out if he was a good gardener or a pest.

I liked this book because it reminded me of planting our garden in Short Hills. Also, the illustrations were really good. Sometimes the author/illustrator would put pictures around the edges of the pages. The pictures were of plants, seeds and things that are pests and things that aren't pests. My favorite picture is the one where Groundhog is getting out of his burrow in the spring and he and squirrel are cutting up potatoes to plant in the garden. Also, I liked the end pages because they had lots of pictures of things we grew in our garden. This is a good book to read!

Learn about Dr. George Washington Carver!

The Little Plant Doctor: A Story About George Washington Carver
by Jean Marzollo
Reviewed by J. Smith

This book tells about Dr. Carver when he was a little boy.It teaches you about how he helped people learn to grow their gardens better. He was too sick and weak to work with his brother on the farm, so he helped with the family garden. He also had a secret garden that no one knew about in the woods. At his secret garden, he learned about plants and
how they grew. Then people started to call him the "Little Plant Doctor".
I liked this book because he helped people with their plants and grew up to be a famous botanist. I also liked the illustrations, especially the page where he is hugging the little tree he planted. I recommend this book if you want to learn about George Washington Carver as a little boy.

Summer Harvest

        While carefully pinching off basil leaves, Alivia recalled from class that ladybugs help to control aphids in the garden.

                               A Pingry pupil picked a pretty perfect purple pepper!

A juicy cucumber!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Gibson (and some hungry chipmunks) have been sharing the bounty of the garden. It is fun to see the eggplant, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, and melons ripening in the combination of August sun and rain. As a taste tester, Mrs. Gibson can report that the few ears of corn harvested before the "critturs" gobbled them up were exceptionally sweet and tender. The purple peppers were a little bitter but interesting in an omelette and the cucumbers were delicious in a Pingry garden salad!

A chipmunk salad bar

There are some chubby chipmunks running around!

A garden salad of  peppers, one tomato, cucumbers, and basil-mmmmmmm