The Pepper Equation: Cultivating Math Skills in the Garden Cont.

Ken is excited about the prospect of growing peppers but he needs a proper place for his plants. He comes up with the idea of building a rectangular garden box from the extra wood he has in his garage.

 

He decides to make the box [latex]6[/latex] feet long and [latex]3[/latex] feet wide.

To determine the size of the material needed to cover the bottom of his garden, he needs to find the area of the rectangular garden box.

Everything is set for Ken’s gardening adventure. Now, he turns his attention to the pepper plants themselves. He wants to understand the flowering tendencies of his pepper plant, which is crucial to predict the number of peppers he can expect. In week one, there are ‘[latex]f[/latex]‘ number of flowers. In week two, there are [latex]5[/latex] more than in week one. Week three shows [latex]2[/latex] more than double the number of flowers compared to week one and in week four there are [latex]4[/latex] less than twice week one.

This equation is a bit complicated and can be simplified.

If there were [latex]39[/latex] flowers at the end of four weeks, how many flowers were on Ken’s pepper plants during the first week of flowering?