Gourd Gardening

Gourds are cool, and thanks to The Gourd Reserve, we are able to provide you with lots of great info on growing and using gourds.

Lots of Hyakunari Gourds, (Japanese gourds), growing on a trellis

To best help you with gourd growing tips we will give you bits of info collected by permission from The Gourd Reserve, and links to the pages that the info was collected from. The info is very extensive, but we will share as much here as possible.

Gourd Growing Tips
Report Vol 2

Growing Productive Vines

(This is the second of two reports published by The Gourd Reserve, the first report is on drying gourds, and we will cover that one later on.)

Insect Control Cucumber Beetles
Insect control, Cucumber beetles are our enemy #1 insect, however are they that devastating? They can be. Learn a little about the Cucumber beetles and controlling them.
Organic Fertilizer
grow healthy vines through green fertilizing, AKA organic fertilizer. It is safe for your plants as well as the environment, your plants will be healthier and happier, and you will be satisfied with your crop.
Diseases
Gourd diseases can kill a crop. Although they are uncommon, every year many people confuse other things as a potential disease. Learn more here...
Lagenaria vs. Cucurbits
a look at the differences between and cucurbits and lagenaria gourds including the question of cross pollination.
Pruning the Gourd Vine
You can actually begint the fruiting process and increase the lateral growth by pruning your gourd vine.
Pruning the Fruit
You can also encourage more fruit production by pruning off the first fruits of the vine.
Designer Gourds - cross pollination
designer gourds, How about designing your own gourd? Do you wish you had a larger bottle gourd or perhaps a smaller kettle? You can move in that direction through cross pollination.
Gourd Flowers
Drawing by Tim moyers showing the male and female gourd flowers for identification purposes.

How to hand pollinate a gourd

Why hand pollinate a gourd? Two reasons, one, to make sure pollination is successful, and two, to make sure the gourd is pure. Keeping purity in a gourd variety is vital, unless you want to grow surprises. Though the process is simple, many do not protect the integrity of the pollinated flower. Here you will learn of 3 different ways to accomplish purity of your seed gourd varieties through hand pollination. We have used this technique in excess of 10 years with 100% success. CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

Gourd Harvest Season

When your vines start drying out, harvest time is near. Check your vines and feel them for moisture. They can be brown on the outside but still be carrying some moisture on the inside, so to insure the hardest thickest gourds you can possibly have, wait until the stem going into the gourd is hard or brittle and dry.

many people like to have the stems on the gourds, so rather than grabbing the gourd and tearing it form the vine, grab the stem and try to tear the vine from the stem of the gourd, being careful not to break it from the gourd. Some will break inevitably, but try to preserve the stem as mych as possible.

Your gourds that are good, should almost sound like glass or a rock when you tap them with your finger nail. With some experience you will learn to hear the subtle difference between a really thick and hard gourd, over the softer gourds that are thin shelled or may not make it. Good solid gourds while not unbreakable are very durable. I would not suggest throwing them around, but piling them in a wheel barrel or wagon should not be an issue.

You also have the option of letting your gourds dry over winter, but we somewhat oppose this idea, at least not on the vine for the purposes of tilling the ground before winter. During the summer when the gourds are in full season, cucumber beetles tend to get a little thick, but what is even thicker is the number of eggs in the ground waiting for spring time. If you do not do something to reduce or eliminate the early season cucumber beetles, next year you will plant your garden and they will hatch out and eat the tops off the vines before they even get a change to grow, and this will kill your gourd vines. Tilling the ground brings the eggs to the surface, just like panning for gold makes the heavier gold sink to the bottom and the lighter dirt washes off the top, when you till the groun, the eggs are light in weight and the dirt is heavey. Tilling will fling the eggs onto the surface and the winter cold will kill them. Even if you don't till in the winter, at least till in the early spring, this too will help to eliminate the vulnerable cucumber beetle eggs.

If you plan to Harvest your gourds, please use common sense and do not store them in your home or garage while waiting for them to dry.

Storing Harvested Gourds