When Trevor Spath's red birdhouse gourds didn't sell, the 13-year-old Eagle entrepreneur painted a white "N" on each one.

And he quickly sold out.

The savvy Waverly Middle School seventh-grader flashes a grin: You gotta know your audience.

Trevor is owner, operator, CEO and creative director of Country Gardens, a decorative gourd business he started just more than seven years ago.

In case you need help with the math: He was a mere 5 years old when he begged and hounded mom Kris Spath for a packet of gourd seeds to plant in a corner of her garden.

She gave him a 6-by-6-foot plot.

But the gourds took over.

"I had tons and tons of gourds," Trevor recalled.

They not only overran the garden, they cross-pollinated with other fruit and veggie species.

"I had watermelon I didn't even know were watermelon," Kris Spath said.

And there was a more pressing issue: What do you do with 300 gourds?

Luckily for Trevor, his grandmother owned an antiques store and offered to sell them. The small pumpkins, Indian corn and decorative orange and green cornucopia-suitable gourds sold well.

But those larger birdhouse gourds needed some tweaking.

So Trevor took them to the garage, hung them from the rafters and waited - six months - for them to dry out.

The sight was not pretty.

A thick coat of mold forms on the gourd skin as the inside dries, Trevor explained.

To clean the mold, you need to dunk the gourds in hot water and scrub, scratch and chunk off the gunk to reveal the hardened shell.

His dad, Stewart Spath, helped him drill a small hole in the side of each of the gourds.

Then, to make the gourds look better, he added a coat of paint and a shiny lacquer.

Birds love 'em.

"The fiber and seeds make good nesting material," he said.

That first year, Trevor gave his hand-painted birdhouse gourds to family members as Christmas presents.

The next year, family and friends began placing orders.

And Trevor got a little more artistic, turning the creamy white gourds into penguins, snowmen, Holstein cows and, of course, his popular but accidental Husker gourd.

Last year, the 4-H entrepreneur came up with another idea: Why not offer customized gourds?

His first customer was Fish Window Cleaning. The white birdhouse gourd features the company's colors and logo.

He also gives people the option of painting their own, providing not only the cleaned and drilled gourd but also the decorating materials and even a paint shirt.

His prices range from 50 cents or three for $1 for the small decorative gourds to up to $15 for customized birdhouse gourds.

His profits are divided into two accounts: his college fund and the very important big pickup truck fund.

This year, Trevor took his gourd business in a new direction, adding a packet of "snake gourds" to his garden plot.

The tubular gourds looked neat on the seed packet cover - all coiled like a snake ready to spring. But in reality, they grew into 3-, 4- and even close to 6-foot-long tubes.

"All of a sudden, I saw these massive things sitting in my garden," Kris Spath said.

They took over the gourd patch, leaving Trevor with very few birdhouse gourds to paint and sell this year.

"They took all the water and sunlight," Trevor said of the snake gourds.

But Trevor is not deterred. The gourd- alien takeover has moved to the garage ceiling to dry out. When they're ready, Trevor will clean and paint them.

His plan is to turn them into large centerpieces people can use this fall and for the holiday season.

And he's already thinking ahead to next summer and fall, when he hopes to have a massive crop of miniature pumpkins, Indian corn and, of course, the increasingly popular birdhouse gourd.

He already has a big order to fill.

"My cousin is getting married, and she wants to put gourds on all the (reception) tables," Trevor said.

Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.

Country Gardens: A teen's business