Part of what I love about this gourd adventure is the journey!  Some years you plant seeds and end up with hundreds of gourds to play with and share.  Some years nothing seems to germinate, and then there's a huge hailstorm, and then a drought, and you wonder "what the heck was I thinking?!"  All the weeding, all the water, all the heartache.  It all goes away when your efforts pay off!  When the gourds start growing and flowering, and you spend every morning "matching up"  boy flowers and  girl flowers (we'll talk about that at another time!), and gazing in amazement at vines that seem to have grown feet rather than inches since the morning before!  It's satisfying to the heart and soul!  It builds character.  It teaches patience.  All those good things we all need to be good people can be found in a garden!

So here is just a brief visit to this years "lower" gourd patch:

This is the way I've decided to grow dipper gourds this year!  I want them to grow with a straight "neck" rather than a curved one, so they need to hang.  It's way-cool.  Hubby even got out the ladder to help pound in the tall t-posts and get the fence panel up there.  So every morning I go out and "train" the young vines to grow up the bridge, and they have learned well!  The first gourds are appearing!!!!
 
 
 
Look how straight it's neck is!  It's just a baby right now, but well on it's way to being the perfect dipper!
 
 
One of the other things that is so amazing is the difference in the varieties and how their leaves look:
 
This is a dipper leaf.............
This is a luffa leaf.......did you know that a luffa sponge is actually not a sponge, but a gourd?!  It's my first year growing these, so we'll see how they do...I'll keep you posted.  It's a good sign that we have leaves, but no flowers yet! 
 
Stay tuned!  Cannonballs, bushels, bananas, and apples are growing, too!