Growing gourds

By Faye Mahaffey

fhmgarden@gmail.com

Gourds — A sure sign it’s fall!

It is offi­cially Autumn and every­where you look pump­kins, squash and gourds are for sale. Since I have lim­ited gar­den space, and even more lim­ited ambi­tion to deal with trail­ing vines, I proudly “buy local” and let the experts do the grow­ing for me!

Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion Fact Sheet, Grow­ing and Cur­ing Gourds in the Home Gar­den (HYG-1630–96), avail­able on ohioline.osu.edu, pro­vides the first-time gourd enthu­si­ast with impor­tant research-based information.

There are 3 types of gourds cov­ered in this fact sheet: the cucur­bita, or orna­men­tal gourds; the lage­naria, which encom­pass the large, util­i­tar­ian gourds; and the luffa, or veg­etable sponge.

The cucur­bita include the col­or­ful, variously-shaped gourds often used in fall arrange­ments. Plants of this group pro­duce large orange or yel­low blos­soms that bloom in the day­time. The lage­naria group includes the Mar­tin or Bird­house, Bot­tle and Dip­per gourds. These plants pro­duce white blos­soms that bloom at night. Lage­naria gourds are green on the vine, turn­ing brown or tan, with thick, hard shells when dry. Luffas have an outer shell that is eas­ily removed to expose a tough, fibrous inte­rior that can be used as a sponge. Luffas pro­duce pro­lific vines with yel­low blos­soms and require the longest grow­ing sea­son of all the gourds.

Gourds are ready for har­vest when the stems dry and turn brown. It is best to har­vest gourds before frost. Mature gourds that have a hard­ened shell will sur­vive a light frost, but less devel­oped gourds will be damaged.

Take care not to bruise the gourds dur­ing har­vest, as this increases the like­li­hood of decay dur­ing the cur­ing process. After har­vest­ing, gourds should be cleaned with soap and water, dried, and rub­bing alco­hol applied to the surface.

Cur­ing cucur­bita gourds is a two-step process which may take 1 to 6 months depend­ing on the type and size of the gourd.

Sur­face dry­ing is the first step in the cur­ing process, and takes approx­i­mately one week. Dur­ing this time, the skin hard­ens and the exte­rior color of the gourd is set. Place clean, dry fruit in a dark, well-ventilated area. Arrange gourds in a sin­gle layer and make cer­tain that the fruits do not touch each other. Check gourds daily and dis­card fruit that show signs of decay or mold and any that develop soft spots.

Inter­nal dry­ing is the sec­ond step in cur­ing and takes a min­i­mum of four weeks. Keep the gourds in shal­low con­tain­ers in a dark, warm, well-ventilated area. If any mold appears on the out­side skin, gourds can be wiped clean and allowed to con­tinue dry­ing. Peri­od­i­cally turn the fruit to dis­cour­age shriv­el­ing and pro­mote even cur­ing. Pro­vid­ing warmth dur­ing the inter­nal cur­ing process will accel­er­ate dry­ing and dis­cour­age decay. Ade­quate cur­ing is achieved when the gourd becomes light in weight and the seeds can be heard rat­tling inside. Cured gourds can be painted, waxed, or decorated.

Sav­ing seeds from gourds could prove to be an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence. Con­sid­er­able cross-pollination occurs in the cucum­ber fam­ily. The gourd, squash and pump­kin seeds pur­chased from gar­den cen­ters or through seed cat­a­logs are from vari­eties grown in areas free from pollen of any other vari­ety. Even so, a cross may sneak in now and then. Seeds saved from gourds grown in the gar­den will likely pro­duce a cor­nu­copia of fruit of dif­fer­ent shapes, sizes and col­ors, none of which may resem­ble the fruit form which the seed was saved.

Frost warn­ing for tonight! I am headed to the pot­ting shed to pull out sheets to cover my pal­let gar­den on the deck. I took a walk around the yard today and said, “Good­bye” to most of the plants. What usu­ally comes inside for the win­ter at my house? The list is short: Rose­mary and Lemon Grass. I am ready to use the green toma­toes in a new recipe, but we will cer­tainly miss the ripe toma­toes at din­ner time.

It’s not too late to reg­is­ter for the Mas­ter Gar­dener Train­ing Classes that begin on Oct. 9! For more infor­ma­tion about the classes, you can call the OSU Exten­sion Office in Adams, Brown, Cler­mont or High­land Coun­ties. The class will last 8 weeks and will be held on Tues­days and Thursdays.

(Faye Mahaf­fey is an OSUE Brown County Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Oct 3 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.