The Bounty of My Garden

Most people garden and grow a plentiful bounty of vegetables that make their way onto their dinner tables and into their stomachs.

Our garden? Eh, not so much.

We got gourds. Lots of ’em. And they are large too. I, personally, don’t know anyone who eats a gourd. But they are pretty. And it saves us money on Halloween decorations. Did I mention we have a few small white pumpkins as well?

This started last fall. After Halloween last year, when the decorative fruit started to get squishy, my husband threw our white pumpkins and gourds into the corner of the backyard we call our garden.

We call it the garden, but no matter how many times he rototills the ground, grass insists on growing there. Which is super humorous, because we can’t get grass to grow in the rest of our yard at all!

This spring my husband planted sweet corn. But, surprisingly, the gourds came up as well. My husband almost mowed off the vines, but I knew what they were from having unsuccessfully tried to grow pumpkins year after year growing up.

So, the corn grew and the gourds grew. We called it my husband’s garden and I left it up to him to care for it. But as it became clear that we are in a drought, I took pity and watered it when I remembered to. He forgot to thin out the corn. And he forgot to harvest it, or rather, kept waiting for the ears to get bigger. (They never did.)

Meanwhile the vines for the gourds and the white pumpkins crept through the chain link fence and tried to climb the neighbors’ tree–multiple times. It grew out through the chain link fence toward the street. It grew every which way in our backyard, increasing the size of our garden by three-fold. It was like something out of The Great Green Turkey Creek Monster.

We started harvesting the fruits of our labor last month. We got most of them to shelter before a freak hailstorm hit. Only a few were damaged. What do you do with a butt-ton of gourds? A few years ago when we grew them (similar seeding process), we tried to sell them. (I think my mother-in-law may have been the only customer, bless her heart.) This year I gave a couple to my mom. The rest, well, we will use them to decorate.

And re-seed for next year.

Now, to get rid of those corn stalks. Ooo! Maybe I could get my husband to bundle them up for decoration as well!

Yes, we have a very bountiful garden. What do we grow? Oh, exterior harvest decorations, of course!

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