I tried making a scarecrow last week and used a cheap plastic hose for the arms. It bent in the sun and now the scarecrow looks like it's waving at everything. I see people on here always using old hoses for limbs, but do they actually last? I'm in Phoenix so the UV probably makes it worse. Has anyone tried wrapping them in something or using a different way to keep them straight?
Ngl I bragged about my 14 inch zucchini at the farmers market in Portland last Tuesday until this old grower laughed and said it must taste like cardboard, so I sliced it up and he was right, has anyone else been picking their mutant veggies way too late?
I was walking the garden exhibits at the Podunk County Fair last Saturday and saw a scarecrow made entirely from dried sunflowers with glowing plastic eyes that moved when the wind hit, and now I'm rethinking every static statue I have in my yard.
Drove out to the family property near Carbondale last week to clean up the corner lot. My grandpa built this spiral cage out of scrap fence wire and old broom handles back in the 80s, and it's still standing. The tomatoes grew through it every year until he passed, and now there's this volunteer vine twisting around it that looks like a green octopus. Has anyone else kept a weird structure alive just out of stubbornness? I'm thinking of adding a second tier to it this spring.
Turns out I was tying the main stem to the stake instead of looping the twine around the whole cage, and the whole thing caved during a storm in Austin last Thursday, has anyone else had their trellis fail because of a rookie knot move?
I planted a beefsteak tomato in a tire planter out back in Austin last spring, and after 3 months of weird heat it grew this lumpy cluster that looks like a screaming face, no joke. My neighbor Dave came over to borrow a rake and just froze, then said 'dude, that thing is cursed' and now he won't come past the fence. Has anyone else had a veggie mutate into something creepy and did you leave it or yank it out?
So I planted some bottle gourds back in May mostly for decoration, but one of them came out with this weird knob on the side that looks exactly like a nose. It's got two little dimples above it too, so the whole thing resembles a grumpy old man staring at my tomatoes. My neighbor walked by and asked if I glued a mask on it, which honestly made me laugh. Has anyone else had produce just morph into something creepy without any help?
I was at the transfer station last Tuesday dropping off brush and saw a pile of broken gnomes and cracked bird baths people had tossed. I grabbed three heads and a torso, glued them onto rebar, and made a totem pole for my front bed. Anyone else salvage trash for weird garden art?
For years I just painted my garden mushrooms once and called it done. Last month I started layering glow in the dark powder into the paint, and now my little cluster near the bird bath lights up until 2am. It took about 3 coats on each of the 7 mushrooms to get it right, and I used the fine powder from a craft store in Portland. Anyone else tried mixing their own glow paint, or is there something better out there for weird garden pieces?
Saw this video online of a sunflower that supposedly told jokes when wind blew through it. Sounded hilarious so I dropped $120 on a kit. Spent 3 afternoons wiring the thing up with a motion sensor and a lil speaker. Turns out the 'jokes' are just a broken squeak toy glued inside a plastic flower. Now it sits by my fence and sounds like a dying mouse every time a squirrel runs by. Anyone else get scammed by one of those viral garden gimmicks?
I planted a packet of mixed radish seeds in April for fun and somehow 47 of them came out twisted, forked, or shaped like little fists. My neighbors think I'm running some kind of veggie freak show, but honestly I just want to know if anyone else has had a harvest this weird and what you did with the extras. Did you just compost half of them or eat the ugly ones anyway?
Built a 6 foot long caterpillar out of chicken wire and zip ties last spring. Looked great for about a week, then a storm flattened it into a sad metal pancake. I re-did the whole thing with 1/4 inch rebar ribs bent into hoops, wrapped the wire over those. It survived a full Minnesota winter with zero shape loss, even the head stayed upright. Cost me about $38 in rebar versus the $12 of wire I used before, but I stopped cursing every time the weather turned. Anyone else found a cheap frame material that beats rebar for big sculptures?
Everyone goes on about neat wire frames, but I let my boxwood gnome grow wild in Boise for 7 months without trimming. Then a freak hailstorm knocked it sideways, and I just rolled with it, now it looks like a drunk gnome hugging a beet. Honestly, the crooked face and lumpy hat get more laughs from neighbors than any perfect shape ever did. Anyone else had a plant disaster that turned out better than the plan?
I planted some decorative gourds near my fence in Tulsa and one of them decided to wrap around a fallen branch, then kept growing sideways for about 8 inches before curling up. It looks like a big green punctuation mark, my neighbor laughed so hard she took a photo for her sister. Has anyone else had vines twist around random yard junk and make something weird on purpose?
Been building this 6 foot tower of interlocking gourds for about a year now, mostly as a joke. Last week a neighbor walked by and said it looked like a 'vegetable ziggurat from a fever dream.' I laughed, but then I realized they were right. That comment made me see the whole thing differently, instead of a weird collection, it's actually a sculpture with structure. Added two more tiers and painted some of the gourds with glow in the dark stripes. Has anyone else had a random comment completely change how they view their garden project?
I used to do a simple willow arch every July for the kids to run through, but last spring I decided to try a corn stalk teepee instead. The corn looked great until August, then a storm flattened the whole thing in one night. Willow arches have their own issues, mainly the suckers sprouting everywhere, but at least they bend instead of snap. Now I'm back to willow for the third time in a decade, and my neighbor keeps asking why I don't just buy a plastic tunnel. Has anyone else gone back to an old design after a fancy one failed, or am I the only one who keeps repeating this cycle?
Last Tuesday I found a zucchini in my patch with a little nub sticking out the side, like it was waving at me. I left it on the vine for three more days and it stretched out into this weird finger shape, honestly kind of creepy but I loved it. Everyone says to pick the weird ones early and compost them, but I think the strange ones are the whole point of this hobby. I ended up putting it on my porch in a little pot as a conversation piece and two people asked if I was growing alien plants. Anyone else keep their mutant veggies around instead of eating them, or am I the only one who likes them ugly?
I built this scarecrow out of three old tomato cages and a cracked garden gnome head, looked hilarious for about a month. Then a gust hit around 4pm and the whole thing folded like a lawn chair, bent the top cage into a weird pretzel shape. I tried to fix it with zip ties but the metal was so rusted it snapped in two places, so I just shoved a PVC pipe through the middle and duct taped the gnome back on. It now leans at a 30 degree angle and honestly looks way creepier, which I'm kinda into. Anyone else have a garden creation that broke and turned out better?
Last weekend I heard a neighbor kid tell his mom my gourd art looked like a 'sad potato with teeth'. I carved that thing for 2 hours with a cheap keyhole saw. Honestly he wasn't wrong. But it made me laugh, and now I'm leaning into the ugly look. Anyone else got a garden piece that turned out way worse than planned but you kept it anyway?
Last August in Portland, I woke up to a zucchini that had grown into this perfect sneaker shape, toes and all, and I swear it turned my whole week around. I had been having a rough stretch, my dog got sick and my work project tanked, but that veggie made me laugh harder than I had in a month. I stuck it on a little stand next to my gnome and people driving by would slow down to take pictures, one lady offered me $20 for it but I kept it until it rotted. It got me thinking about how mutant veggies are like free comedy shows, you just have to let nature do its weird thing. Has anyone else had a misshapen plant that just made everything feel lighter for a few days?
I painted a river rock to look like a giant snail and stuck it in my lettuce bed last April. My neighbor, who's been gardening for years, asked what kind of snail it was and if it was eating my crops. I had to tell her it was fake, and we both cracked up. That made me curious, so I made three more in bright purple and pink spots and placed them around my hostas. A real robin spent about 10 minutes trying to flip one over, pecking at it like it was a weird hard bug. Now I'm working on a bottle cap caterpillar to see if it fools anything else, has anyone else had fake garden creatures mess with actual animals?
Pulled the damn thing out after frost and the roots had spread 4 feet sideways, I read online that's normal for tall sunflowers but never saw it up close. Anyone else dig up a freak mutant and find something wild underground?
I spent last fall wiring a lavender spiral into a cone frame I welded from rebar. Looked great for about 4 months. Then the damp hit in March and the whole thing rusted from the inside, staining the plant brown and killing half the branches. I tried sealing it with rust converter after the fact, but it was too late, the damage was done. Everyone in my local garden club keeps saying rebar is fine if you just paint it. I painted it twice, still failed. Now I'm leaning toward PVC pipe wrapped in chicken wire for the next one, even though it looks cheaper. Has anyone else had a metal frame wreck a plant, or am I the only one stubborn enough to trust bare steel in a wet climate?
I only planned for 30 but kept saving seeds from the weird ones and now I'm at 100, has anyone else had a mutant veggie collection spiral out of control like this?