Forget about the Royal Baby!

     Seriously, forget about the Royal Baby and look at my cucuzzi!

     Or should I say, "OMG! Oh my gourd!"  

     Gardening in Florida has not been a smooth road for me.  I moved here from Missouri where the seasons are cut and dried and the veggies do what they say they'll do on the back of the seed packets.

I finally adopted a Carribean state of mind after reading a magazine article that featured edible plants at home in an enviroment that swings wildly between scorching, freezing, drippingly humid and rife with pests.

      I ordered the cucuzzi seeds last year but they never sprouted.  Failure accepted; slight sting after loss of about $6 (12 seeds plus shipping and handling).

     This spring I left my garden boxes to the volunteers: butternut squash, gandules that now look like trees, 1 papaya plant, my favorite heirloom cherry tomatoes that I long ago forgot the name of and a batch of dill that was quickly eradicated by giant swallowtail caterpillars.  In the midst of this craziness I spotted a vine that was obviously "something."

     The elusive cucuzzi finally made its appearance.  There are only 2 on the vine and I decided to let them grow to the seed stage so that next year I can test some recipes being sent to me by former classmates of my heavily Italian high school.  In the meantime, I'm having fun seeing just how big this gourd will grow.