Question

Barb is growing tomato plants in her garden. The plants she purchasedare 10 inches tall and she cannot pick the tomatoes until the plants are 28inches tall. If the plants grow 2.5 inches per week, how many weeks willit take before she can pick the tomatoes? (Write and solve an inequalitythat represents this situation.)

Answer 1

First you have to analyze the problem. The plants she purchased are 10 inches tall, so this height is fixed. Then you know that the plants grow 2.5 inches per week and that she cannot pick the tomatoes until the plants are 28 inches tall. So the inequality that represents this situation is:

$\begin{gathered} 2.5x+10\ge28 \\ 2.5x\ge28-10 \\ 2.5x\ge18 \\ x\ge7.2 \end{gathered}$

x represents the weeks she has to wait before picking the tomatoes.

So the answer is 7.2 weeks.