The Great Gourd Growing Experiment

As a gourd artist and gardener's wife, it's only natural that I would eventually want to try growing some of my own gourds.  My husband, Gary, and I live on an acre of property.  One would think this would offer plenty of room to grow a few gourd plants, but in reality, after over 30 years here, we have pretty much filled up the entire acre with one kind of plant or another.  Additionally, gourd plants can grow for (seemingly) miles and need more room than we could spare.  So I leased a 20' x 20' plot at the Corona Community Garden at Peace, which just happens to be located on the property of the church I attend.  We started the seeds at home (more about germinating gourd seeds later) and prepared the plot for planting.  This is only the 2nd year for the community garden, and our particular plot had never been cultivated - it's been home to weeds and rocks for years.  We weeded and rototilled it earlier in the spring.  Last week we soaked it with water for a couple days, and then Gary dug out 5 separate spots to plant our garden in "hills," adding a generous amount of organic garden soil.  The ground was super hard (so hard that a 6'4" 240 lb. man stood on the shovel with his full weight and still made slow progress).  Today was planting day - we turned the soil again, adding gypsum and blood/bone meal to our planting hills and then in went the plants.  I'll keep you posted on our progress!