I have grown gourds in the past.

Tips...they are part of the squash family. So do not plant anywhere near to squash where the bees will pollinate back and forth or if you plant them too close you will have squash that is hard shelled and bitter.

I have a huge garden on our 10 acres and planted gourds at one end of the garden and squash and cucumbers at the other end. I do remember getting a lot of gourds off the plants. I used them for ornaments even used them that fall as table centerpieces at a banquet. Our kids loved them.

I just planted the seeds into the ground. I did not bother to try to start them in the house. I had good germination out in the warm garden soil.

I have grown gourds too. Just the smaller to medium size mixed varieties that are all colors and shapes and with lots of warts - the kind used in fall arrangements. I haven't tried the larger type that can be used in crafts for making birdhouses and things.

I plant directly in the garden around the May long weekend or the week before (if we haven't had a spring snow storm...). I have found that they grow better and you get nicer gourds if you can grow them on a trellis or fence rather than sprawling along the ground like pumpkins. I think they get more light and the fruit doesn't get blemished from sitting on the ground. The first year I did them on a trellis it seemed that the vines were larger with more gourds and the colors were more vibrant.

Susan

I've grown birdhouse gourds 2 yrs in a row.. First time I grew them in window box & ended up with 2 good size ones.. Last year I grew them in the green house, it looked like a jungle in there but ended up with 5 good size ones.. Right now I turning them in to birdhouses.. Think I try them this year in the ground close to the house.. But like a vine on a trellis.. Only problems I encounted was mildew on the leaves later in the season.. Plus I was forever watering them..

Thanks for the tips. I'll be growing them on the ground, using up about a third of my dad's large vegetable garden space that they won't be using much of this year. With spacing 5' apart in rows about 5' apart, I figure I can grow a couple dozen or so plants. I'm hoping this will also serve as a ground cover for this year while the garden space isn't being used.

I ordered all 4 kinds from Vesey's - cross pollination may be a problem amongst the various gourds themselves, but not with any other squash in the garden as there won't be any.

Good to know direct sowing in this climate will work with these plants, but since the birdhouse type has such a long maturity date, I'll start those a month earlier. I wondered how growing them in the greenhouse would work - no problem with pollination then, kat?

I was reading on a google search about the growing and watering of gourds and got an idea about using large coffee cans partially buried near the plant to act as a reservoir for deep watering. At the moment I have a few dozen large empty coffee cans in the basement (yup, a packratting coffee hound). I'm thinking about using this method - hammering holes on one side of the can to distribute water near the roots of the plant without constantly getting the leaves wet.

This was my only creation a couple of years ago. If you can grow nicely cucumbers, you can grow
these fine!.....as you can tell from the pic, I can't grow cucs very well.
Konrad

That's cute Konrad, though not sure it would hold many pens and pencils :)

I grew gourds one year at my parent's property. The vines grow just about as big as pumpkins. They aren't much different from growing squash/pumpkins/cucumbers.

I planted only a few seeds but ended up with way too many gourds than I needed. But then, I had mixed seed with different types of gourds so pretty well had to plant at least a few seeds to get a variety of types. I am not really the "crafty" type, but I applied a shelac/varnish spray to some of them and they did last for about a year as table decorations.

It was sort of neat harvesting them, seeing what shapes and types developed.

Glen

Gee, Konrad - i just looked at your picture again. I hope that's a roll of PAPER TOWELS that your gourd is on! LOL

Thank you all!

This one in the pic was grown in a pot.

>>though not sure it would hold many pens and pencils

I was hoping for larger ones...nevertheless, they are fun to grow, but need a long season if you're aiming for the "big" ones.

>>I applied a shelac/varnish spray to some of them and they did last for about a year as table decorations.

I would think they should last for many years?
Have you dried them first?....It almost took a year to dry mine up completely, then become very dense and hard.

>>I hope that's a roll of PAPER TOWELS that your gourd is on! LOL

No, that's part of the gourd!.......just kidding, have just put it on the paper roll to make a pic.

Konrad

I like it, too, Konrad. It sure turned a nice colour. Were you hoping for larger gourds to make purple martin bird houses?

I keep wondering about the drying process - after it's dried, does the 'meat' inside just shrivel up? Or doesn't it produce the squashy part inside? I understand one should be able to hear seeds rattling around in there when fully cured but I keep wondering what happens to the fleshy part inside - does that harden, too, or just the skin? Glen, did yours last a year but could have lasted longer and you just tossed them, or? Oh, and Konrad, did you cut the neck before it was cured, or after?

Thank you & good question pudge!

I really didn't plan this far ahead in terms of what I would do with them, I knew that you could do many things with them but first, I just wanted to see if I could grow any first.

What happened at the drying process, the neck kind of started to rot, so I cut it off, I think the neck was not fully developed.
The meat inside shriveled up and think I pulled it out with some kind of tool, wire or something, not exactly sure anymore, it was a stringy fiber, there was no seed inside that I know because at first, thought I could make a rattler from it,.......I guess due it's short season or lack of polination? Some people hand polinate for viable seeds.
Konrad

Neat pencil holder...
I'm not that creative... I haven't gotten any with seed inside yet.. So far all I've done is drill holes & make birdhouses.. Here's one I just finished.. Its suppose to be a finch house..Cup style, don't think I got the opening big enough.. Plus one I haven;t done anything with yet.. The ones I did 2 yrs ago all I did was spray paint them..
You can see the string thur the one I use to hang them with.

Growing outside 2004

Growing in greenhouse 2005

Pudge, I have some gourd seeds that I got in a trade if you want them. I don't have the room here or I'd try them myself.

If you're interested, I have birdhouse gourd and spotted swan neck gourd seeds.

Cindy

Thanks for the offer Cindy, but with the 4 packs coming from Vesey's, there will be more than I need. Any more word on your move?

No problem, if anyone else wants to try them just let me know.

No word on the move yet, we're still trying to decide if we're going to move east or west, lol. Gotta do something pretty soon though. There's no jobs here so we'll go wherever hubby can find work I guess. I already told him that wherever we go we're taking my WSing containers with us, lol. The funny thing is he thinks I'm joking.......;)

Cindy

Cindy,

That sounds just like me! When we moved I labelled boxes wrong so that hubby wouldn't know I was moving rocks, branches and seashells. He knew about all my plants but fortunately for his sake I didn't have seedlings to move. :)

Syreeta

LMAO Now that is a GREAT idea, I love it! Gonna have to keep that in mind for sure. I could label them all "TOOLS". That way it would explain the weight of the boxes and make sure that they don't get left behind or mistreated in any way

Syreeta you are an evil genius....and I love it, lol.

Cindy

Glad I could help!

Syreeta

Thought I'd show you the results of my efforts. I harvested today - temp was 4C, raining and windy. But the gourds were sinking into the ground after about 3.5" of rain in the last couple of days so I had to get them out of there for fear of rotting. In total there's about 70 but I harvested the small ones, too. Here's the bigger ones

The smaller ones

And the biggest one

All those brown pitted markings are from the hail damage. The pits seem to have dried and are not rotting so I think no harm done.

Now to dry them ... I've been reading over at the gourd forum and everyone talks about mold. I just don't want 70 moldy gourds in the house. I read one post where someone from a cold climate stored them outside for the winter and they were fine, still dried even though they were frozen. I'm thinking about keeping them in the greenhouse on the slat benches over winter. Anyone have experience with making mush of harvested gourds because they froze?

Pudge, do you have a dehumidifer in the house? I wonder if setting them in front of one for a few weeks would help with controlling the mold? I would think that the faster you could dry them with lots of air flow, then there would be less chance of mold forming? It's just an idea, as I've never grown gourds or tried drying them before, but the dehumidifier seems to help with drying onions and garlic for me.
Btw, they are cute little guys, those gourds, aren't they?!

Laurie

You did awesome! You'll be busy doing crafts with them for awhile.

My grandmother would just stick hers in the back bedroom and they would dry there. Or Laurie's suggestion with the dehumidifier would work I would think. You'll have to let us know which way you dried them and how well it worked.

Syreeta

Lovely pictures!
Congrats on your success!

I would experiment, since you have a ton of it. LOL

Some, like Laurie suggested.....it may be, they don't like being dried too fast, but good air circulation sounds good.
Hanging some, lay some on a screen, perhaps in a warm room like furnace, greenhouse sounds good, perhaps bring some in when it gets cold?
Konrad

Thanks for the suggestions. The dehumidifier is a good idea and I do use it in the summer when I'm drying stuff in the basement, but in the winter our house is really, really dry (too dry, actually, I think we could use a humidifier) so running a dehumidifier in the winter months wouldn't work.

I think I'll do as Konrad suggests and experiment - some in the greenhouse over winter and I'll bring a few of the biggest ones into the house once it gets good and cold just to be on the safe side. Right now they're all on the cart, and I'll wheel them in and out of the garage for a while. My SIL will take a few - she wants to try something crafty - so she can worry about her own drying process. I'm sure some aren't mature enough and will probably rot away.

I think it was a really good year to attempt growing gourds. And for anyone who needs a temporary ground cover in a large area to keep the weeds at bay, these gourds really do the job.

Gourds LOVE huge mounds of well rotted manure and good soil. If you can keep the varmints from digging through them, and get a good trellis going, you'll have tons of them in no time. They also like water, but mostly water them when the fruits are growing. Luffas are also good to grow, just use black plastic to grown gourds and luffas. Also, use a cloche or a gallon plastic jug to keep them warm if there is a later frost.

Well, since I just finished scraping the last two gourds, I thought I'd give you an update to my efforts.

So out of the 70, 11 (6 big ones) dried. I'm happy with that - I certainly didn't want 70, LOL. These are still in the natural state (no paint/varnish etc)

A few I brought inside from the greenhouse when it started to get consistently cold. I scraped the green off and stabbed the bottom with a sharp knife to allow some drainage (I read this will hasten the drying process). The scraped ones still molded some, but I kept them near the kitchen sink and washed them every other day.

I left the rest in the greenhouse to freeze and just about 10 days ago went and brought the last two in the house. I had to let them thaw for a day - frozen solid they were. Although the green had begun to dry off, I still scraped them to clean them up. By the way, after the green was scraped off, those pitted marks just turn out to be dark spots on the hard shell.

So, if they're mature enough to dry, they will, regardless of where they're kept. The biggest ones dried more than the small ones. If I were to do it again, I'd pinch off all the smaller gourds once the biggest ones set and are growing well.

I don't know what I'll do with the small ones, but will be making birdhouses out of the larger ones.

Those look great Pudge! I just love the shape of them for decorative purposes too. Do you think it'll be hard to drill the hole in them for birdhouses?

Good job Pudge! I can't wait to see the birdhouses. I think the spots add character.

Thank you! Quite a production and work for only a few, but it was a great learning experience. I'm toying with the thought of growing a couple more in large pots this summer and let them grow up the bird arbor. The grapes (if they live) and clematis planted there will take some time yet before they climb up and over the arbor - the gourds could scramble over it in the meantime.

I like the spots and such, too, Gillian. I'm thinking that I'll leave the ones I use for the birdhouses natural. On willow furniture I use an equal mix of turpentine/boiled linseed oil/varnish to bring out the colour and protect the willow for staying outdoors. I may try this concoction on the birdhouses. When I wet these gourds the colours are much richer. Wetting untreated dried willow brings out the colour as well - so I'm thinking it might be much the same.

Laurie, I don't know how difficult drilling holes in them will be. Several small holes have to be drilled in the bottom as well. DH has hole cutter bits of various sizes so I think I'll leave that up to him. And as for decorative, LOL - right now a number are scattered on a wide ledge amongst some spider plants and a couple more in the kitchen bay window and I love them just where they are. Yes, I guess I will have to grow some more.

Looking good pudge!
I can hardly wait to see your bird pics with these!
Yea...a fine tooth hole cutter should give you a nice hole.
Konrad