The Mutant Gourds down at The Gathering Place Bed and Breakfast and Retreat Center

I got this wild hair one year to plant my potatoes in a mound instead of a row. So I bought my seed potatoes and dumped them all together in a 4 x 6 area and mounded them over with dirt. Looked so much like a cemetery plot that I added a little American flag to each corner for visual effect. Lo and behold, little green shoots started coming up, but no way would they pass for potatoes. So I waited to see what monster plant was rising up out of my cemetery plot. When people would come to check out my garden, I queried them on what they thought the plants were. No one knew, but potatoes was definitely ruled out! Whatever they were feeding on was working well for them because they were spreading like wildfire and taking over my garden. They bypassed the little flags and were marching on to overthrow the rest of the plants in my garden. The war was on and they were winning! Nothing could stop them now!! But wait, suddenly pretty flowers appeared and soon --the mystery was over. Little gourds were plopping out everywhere. And these little gourds just kept getting bigger and bigger. I knew when I had been defeated so I raised the white flag and surrendered. Did that stop them? No. They just kept multiplying and multiplying. By the end of the season, I ended up with a wagon load of these "monster gourds" and not much else in my garden. So I hung them on the fence (see my blog "cattle panels-next best thing to duct tape) to dry, hoping maybe I could make bird houses out of them. If anyone out there has any good ideas for how to use these "mutants" let me know. So far they are hanging from the rafters in my greenhouse. I felt good knowing that I had won in the end by sentencing them to die by hanging until dead. So there!