We have a compost pile in our back yard. We throw all sorts of stuff in there, but I always know what it is when it goes in. This year we had volunteer tomatoes, catnip and a mystery squash come up. I have absolutely no idea what kind of squash this is but I know we have never thrown anything like that in the pile. We have thrown pumpkin and zucchini and cushaw and yellow squash parts into the pile but none of those particularly look like this fruit.
For a bit, I considered the possibility that someone was playing a compost pile prank…but who on Earth would do that? Too bad I don’t have any composting friends though…could be interesting.
Anyhow, back to the subject at hand…does anyone have any idea what this is? Maybe a mutation of some hybrid pumpkin or something? Ginny chomped on one, but quickly left it alone (and you know, my dumb dog eats poop so that ‘s saying something!)
We have found other weird stuff in the course of gardening…
Usually you can id something that you ate/threw in the compost for earlier.
According to Uncle Google, you have a ‘Warted Gourd’. That rolls off the tongue so nicely. Now Ginny’s gonna have a warted mouth. 🙂
I’m betting some kind of ornamental gourd. Not an exact match but look at the pics under “ornamental gourds” on this website: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pumpkinconnection.com/images/1093.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pumpkinconnection.com/prod_ornamentals.htm&h=300&w=400&sz=48&tbnid=KQ7mDrp8BlJyLM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwarted%2Bgourd%2B%2Bphotos&usg=__1Kbi_SqPF5s88JGClpqxAXLsscs=&sa=X&ei=YUVlTJLtLsGBlAf_gPWRDg&ved=0CB4Q9QEwAQ
Warted gourd… lol… sounds good.
Our compost pile gave us tomatoes much more vigorous than the ones we lovingly tend.
I think it looks like some kind of a gourd too. Looks like I need to start a compost pile. Maybe I’ll get some plants to grow in that because the garden just isn’t doing much of anything. 2 zucchini, 2 squash, 3 tomatoes, 6 bananna peppers. What a harvest!!!! lol It’s never been this bad…..
???
Well, I guess it could be growing worse things than warty gourds 😉
It looks ugly and evil. No wonder it tasted bad.
I have a mystery squash growing out of my compost pile, too. Much to my chagrin, all of my babied butternuts, watermelons, and zucchinis are worthless this year, while this monster is enormous and producing like crazy.
I’ve never had an edible squash show up out of compost- always bitter and tough. They cross polinate so easily that it is probably impossible to guess what it came from. It’s frankensquash.
I surfed in through Foxhaven Journal’s link to your bee post but saw this post. I used to raise pumpkins as a business and one year decided to save some seed to replant on some especially nice looking pumpkins. The problem was that they evidently cross pollinated with some ornamental gourds and the following year I had a whole mess of Frankenstein looking fruits. So my guess is you have a cross between a squash and a warted gourd. I ended up taking my warted pumpkins I raised that year to a local craft festival in the fall and sold every one of them. People really like warty pumpkins for some reason. I’m not sure warty squash has the same appeal.
That’s really weird, I live in Ottawa and today found the EXACT SAME gourd in my garden and have been trying to figure out what the heck it is. Found your blog through the google image search engine.
So… did you eat one? We are trying to decide if we should try ours. Email me if you want a pic!
Hey Steve – we understand that our gourd was an “ugly gourd” and was for decoration only. But if you do try it, let me know how it is…I am curious!