Grandpa's Garden Journal
Ella finds her grandfather's old garden journal and follows it, week by week, to grow a sunflower taller than she is.
In a dusty box in the attic, Ella found a green notebook with a pressed sunflower petal on the cover. Inside, in her grandpa's neat handwriting, it said: The Garden Journal of Samuel Brooks, age 9.
"Grandpa, you kept a garden journal when you were my age?"
Grandpa smiled and brushed off the cover. "Every summer. Want to start one of your own?"
Week 1. They planted three sunflower seeds in the sunniest corner of the yard, each one knuckle-deep in the soil. "A seed is like a packed lunch," Grandpa said. "It holds just enough food for the baby plant to get started."
Week 2. Tiny green loops pushed up through the dirt and then straightened into two round leaves. Ella measured them: 2 centimeters. She drew them in her journal.
Week 4. The plants had real leaves now, big and rough. "Leaves are like little kitchens," Grandpa explained. "They take in sunlight, water from the roots and air, and they turn them into food for the plant. It's called photosynthesis."
"Photo-syn-the-sis," Ella repeated, writing it carefully. "Photo means light, right? Like in photograph?"
"Exactly. Making things with light."
Week 6. A hot, dry spell came, and one sunflower drooped. Ella watered it every evening, soaking the soil deeply so the roots could reach down for it. By morning, it stood tall again.
Week 8. The tallest sunflower was taller than Ella. At the top, a big green bud formed. Ella noticed something strange: every morning, the bud faced east, toward the sunrise. By evening, it had turned to face west. "It follows the sun!" she wrote.
Week 10. The bud opened into an enormous yellow flower, as wide as a dinner plate. Bees came from all over the neighborhood, buzzing from one tiny flower to the next in its fuzzy center. "Each sunflower is really hundreds of tiny flowers packed together," Grandpa said.
Week 14. The petals faded and dropped. The flower head grew heavy and bowed toward the ground. When Ella looked closely, the center was packed with hundreds of striped seeds in beautiful spiral patterns.
They saved some seeds to plant next year and left the rest for the birds. Goldfinches came and hung upside down to peck them out.
On the last page of her journal, Ella wrote: One seed made one plant, and one plant made hundreds of seeds. Nature is really good at math.
Grandpa read it over her shoulder and laughed. Then he took out a pen and, in his old green notebook, under a page from seventy years ago, he added: Summer with Ella. Best garden ever.
⭐ The End ⭐
💬 Talk about it
- What does Grandpa compare a seed to, and why?
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A packed lunch, because it holds food for the baby plant. - What is photosynthesis?
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How leaves use sunlight, water and air to make food for the plant. - What did Ella notice about the sunflower bud each day?
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It faced east in the morning and west in the evening, following the sun. - What did Ella mean when she wrote "Nature is really good at math"?
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One seed became a plant that made hundreds of new seeds, and the seeds grow in spiral patterns.
