Bottle Gourd Tepee

 

When I was planning the veggie garden, I knew I wanted something fun for my daughter & young nieces & nephews.  I decided to try growing gourds & made a tepee from cut saplings on our property.

When constructing the veggie garden, we built a 4x4 raised bed & placed it down the hill beside the pigeon coop on the only fairly level area of our backyard.  This lonely little bed would be for the gourd tepee.

I started the seeds indoors along with the veggie seeds & set the seedlings out last May.  I had intended to wrap some dead wisteria vine around the tepee to give the gourds something else to climb on & also enclose the tepee a little.

However, more important outdoor chores had other plans for me & I didn't get around to wrapping the wisteria vines before the gourd vines needed a place to climb.

Recently, I stretched out the gourd vines and wrapped them around the tepee poles.  There were many blossoms and little gourds already growing.

I can't wait for these gourds to grow to their full size, dry out & then we'll make bird houses with them.

In the meantime, I hope the little ones enjoy seeing the growing gourds & the friendly garden gnomes keeping watch over them.

There are four of these gnomes residing in this garden bed.  They were used as decorations for my daughter's forest themed birthday party last November.

  Next spring I'll be sure to wrap some dead vines around the poles to enclose the tepee a little and I'll add a little stone floor as well.