Last summer I planted gourds. I had planted two kinds-loafa and bird house gourds. These make really nice christmas presents. I painted them with an Americana theme, made the hole a little bigger than I normally would, stuffed it with pete moss, put a small bird I got a Wal-Mart for .55 and put a small flag(toothpick flags!) comming out the hole and wrote United We Stand on the front.They are so cute, I don't want to give them!!I encourage any of you to plant these next year. I paid less than 1.00 for the seed packet and have over 50 gourds. I planted them next to the sunflowers and they grew up them. It was great I could go pick them and not have to dig to find them!!Cheap and easy but needs to be thought of well ahead of time!!

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), December 17, 2001

Answers

Micheale-my MIL planted some of those bird house gourds year before last on her garden fence-we have a real deer problem here so gardens have to be fenced in 7-feet or so. They are great! She didn't get 50-I don't knowhow many she planted I'd say maybe 15. She gave some to us. We all painted them some Earthy Americana colors and hung them out. They are very attractive and have held up outside very well.

-- Kelly (ksaderholm@yahoo.com), December 17, 2001.