After doing some watering with the hose, I hooked up the soaker hose on the tomatoes, then let it run while I finished mulching the paths in the squash patch.

Our straw bale is now completely used up, and all the paths in the squash patch are now mulched. Yay!

Somehow, I didn’t think to take a picture, though. Too focused on getting the watering done!

The rain barrel at the trellises was half empty, so I set the hose to fill it and use the watering can, taking my time to give the barrel time to actually fill up in between my taking water out. That gave me the chance to train more of the cucumbers up their trellis net, as well as the mystery gourd.

Which is no longer a mystery.

The labels had worn off, but I figured they were either luffa or ozark nest egg gourds – and they didn’t look like luffa.

While training some of the vines up their trellis net, I found some baby gourds.

Which officially confirms it. They are Ozark nest egg gourds.

Which mean that none of the luffa transplants survived at all.

Hopefully, this year, we will actually have some mature gourds! Last year, once the heat waves and drought conditions eased off, the Ozark nest egg gourds absolutely exploded with new growth, and many baby gourds. Unfortunately, it was too late in the season by then, even with our unusually long and mild fall, and they were killed off by frost.

Hopefully, these will have more time! The gourds aren’t particularly large at their mature size, so there is a chance for them.

I would love to finally have some gourds to cure and use for crafting!

The Re-Farmer