Remember those weird warty stripey squash that I grew last year? They grew up to be tan? And then they were inedible.
So, I suspected they might be gourds.
And to test my theory, I left them outside on the patio table all winter long.
Do you know what happens to gourds when you leave them over winter? They get nasty and moldy and eeww - but that's normal because then they get a hard shell that you can cut into to make birdhouses or not cut into and make shakers.
It's what rurified people do on the weekends.
So I wanted to see if my weird warty stripey inedible tan squash would act like gourds and do the winter moldy eeww thing and get hard shells. Because then I would know that they were gourds.
So I left them out all winter and they did get moldy and eeww, with hard shells.
And now I know. They were gourds.
I'll scrub them up a bit and see if they'll make good birdhouses. That'd be totally cute.