Squords, Squmpkins -- The various squashes, gourds, and pumpkins like to cross within the species and sometimes within the genus (ie, a Cucurbita pepo winter squash like Acorn will cross with a C. pepo gourd like Gremlins very freely in my experience). You can get all kinds of fun novelty shapes. Some are edible, some are too bitter to eat, it just depends on what went into the genetic mix. But I've always found it fun just to let them grow and see what happens. Like snowflakes, no two ever are quite the same, and you'll never have the same type of fruit again, so enjoy it while it's here. Pics, of course, would help (says the guy on dial up who doesn't post pics to the internet because its so darned slow )

Robert again you did it again, What can I say BUT ITS DA BOMB Robert you are so very talented and everything you create always makes me think God has given you amazing talents, but the best part is that you have taken your talent created and then by posting it we can enjoy and admire, and sit here in admirations while we view an original work right in our own homne. PS Thank you for your genorosity by even giving us the instructions. Again I am awestruck that your eye can find beauty in gears, candle holder, computer case and the grenade. Thank You so much for sharing ;(*~*); Nanagrandma/Sylvia

i can provide no opinion about chemical use.. without a picture for a sure ID of your problem .... in my garden.. the last ten days have been near 95 .... with high humidity .. hard for a healthy person to breath out there.. and just about everything is turning brown.. mostly from the ground up ... and.. its mid july .... my presumption is that the plants are sacrificing older leaves for the buds and higher parts of the plant .... with no other observation besides some brown leaves.. chemical use is NOT indicated.. ken

If you have squirrels in the area, they of course have excellent climbing ability, and one of their behaviors is to prune the tips of tree branches off, presumably in the course of feeding...which sounds similar to what is being done to your tomatos. After one particularly bad spring, my whole neighborhood was littered with branch tips thrown down by squirrels. Squirrels and chipmunks also both dig random holes here and there in the search for food, or--in the case of chipmunks--preparatory to making a nest. If you used mushroom or any other form of loose mulch, you may have imported a mouse, rat, or something else along with it, in which case it is probably living in the garden itself. Therefore, the protective screening would of course not solve the problem. Repellants might do a better job if that is the case, but if your garden is the only feasible home in the area for the critter, it will probably resist leaving. I know that chipmunks can climb up an entire sunflower stem to eat the sunflower's seeds; maybe other rodents besides squirrels also have climbing abilities. The random nipping and destruction sounds suspiciously like a groundhog (they like to take nips out of things as a sort of turf-claiming thing), but unless you have ever seen one of them around or have a mound with a rather large groundhog-sized hole, you can rule that out, especially in the city. If your mulch is from a more rural location, I would incline toward the chipmunk theory. They are also quite territorial, and used to demolish the contents of some of my plant pots-- mainly because, I think, they didn't like where I had placed them. Chipmunks like to clear certain areas so they have a clear line of sight. If your mulch was from a more rural location, a chipmunk could have made a burrow in it, and been swept up along with the mulch.