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Glorious Gourds - Part 1

© Sonia Fluke

A Gourd. What a fascinating little item it is. I have a gourd vine, the first I have ever grown, flourishing on my lawn near my fruit trees. It is bursting forth with small buds that will later become gourds, as well as a few monsters lurking beneath the leaves already. I thought I would give it a go a while back, threw the seed into some fill behind a retaining wall and forgot about it. Next thing you know the wall is half covered in this glorious and prolific vine.

I have always admired dried gourds whenever I have seen them for sale, they look so....rustic and natural. I had no idea they would be so easy to grow though, and it occurs to me now that I have next years Christmas presents taken care of if I can get them through the drying process.

If you would like to grow gourds for yourself but are not sure how, don't despair. It's the same as growing a pumpkin vine (they are from the same family), and pumpkins grow themselves. All you need is time really, as they take over 100 hot days to actually ripen so plant your seed as soon as the last frost is over in early spring. I personally prefer to use organic, hierloom variety seed wherever possible so you may like to check out the online companies that sell these. In Australia I recommend Eden Seeds, you'll find them here: http://www.edenseeds.com.au/content/defa... At least this way you can be sure the vine will fruit.

Plant the gourd seed either near an arbour or structure it can clamber up (a strong one, the fruit is quite heavy), near a retaining wall it can climb down or even on your lawn - but somewhere it has a lot of space. Let it go, water it occasionally, don't mow too close to it and you'll be rewarded in a while with huge, luscious looking gourds. Leave them on the vine as long as you can (preferably until the vine has died off), pick them leaving a 2 inch stalk and put them somewhere to dry. Be aware that frost will rot them, so pick them as soon as the ground get's frosty even if the vine is still going, but the general rule is the longer they are on the vine the better chance they have of drying properly.

The drying process itself takes quite a while, anything up to a year I am told, but usually around 6 months depending on your climate. They need to be stored either hanging up, or on some kind of mesh rack or similar and definitely not touching as they need good air circulation. It is normal for them to develop mould during drying, but if they start to actually rot, discard the rotten ones. Once they are properly dried they will sound hollow when tapped and the seeds will rattle around inside them. You now have some pretty groovy items for decorating the place with or giving as gifts, and in my next article I'll provide some ideas for doing just that.