Gourds!

Last month we had a very unfortunate event in our garden. Heavy winds blew over (and basically destroyed) our garden arch which was loaded with hanging gourds. We had not yet re-erected it, for fear of damaging the plants growing on it, but today, with the help of a new friend, Dylan, we set about fixing things.

Here Josephine and Dylan are examing the gourd plants, searching for damaged gourds that are certain not to grow to maturity.

We picked the ill-fated gourds and sliced them open to get a glimpse of what is going on inside a growing gourd. Dylan showed everyone our amazing discovery.

When you look up close, you can see the tiny little seeds lined up inside.

Here is a larger gourd, which is almost "spongey" inside.

Then we took out shovels, bamboo poles, and rope, and set about re-erecting the arch. Dylan was a huge help in this.

Yippee!!! Now the gourds have a better chance of finishing off their growing season, now that they are off the wet ground and once again hanging as they should.

Dylan was worried about the larger gourds, thinking they needed support instead of hanging like that. I showed him how thick and strong their stems are, and then I showed him in a gardening book pictures of hanging gourds, even bigger than ours, just hanging. He spent his entire snacktime excitedly looking through the whole book, thrilled at all the garden photos inside.