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Yesterday, I planted two 125 foot rows of gourd plants in my brother's garden. This year I planted them in pie shaped groups and put grass clipping between to cut down on the weeding.
Hopefully, next fall I will have hundreds of gourds! I love gourds.
Germaine, my boys did something that had people laughing. Well, I had a part in it too, helping them plant them. They just had a few birdhouse gourd seeds do plant and decided to plant them along our stockade fence. They got the idea of growing things along a support like that after I planted pole beans around each leg of an A frame swing set. The gourd plants grew like crazy, all along and on both sides of the fence. Then the funny part happened. The vines grew over into our redbud tree! And gourds grew in the tree! I saw several people drive by in the fall slow down to do a double take at a tree full of gourds! They had 7 or 8 nice gourds in the tree. lol
The next year I wanted to do that with luffa sponge seeds, but I wasn't a resident of that house the next spring. The ex wife almost always gets the house! lol
Germaine, my boys did something that had people laughing. Well, I had a part in it too, helping them plant them. They just had a few birdhouse gourd seeds do plant and decided to plant them along our stockade fence. They got the idea of growing things along a support like that after I planted pole beans around each leg of an A frame swing set. The gourd plants grew like crazy, all along and on both sides of the fence. Then the funny part happened. The vines grew over into our redbud tree! And gourds grew in the tree! I saw several people drive by in the fall slow down to do a double take at a tree full of gourds! They had 7 or 8 nice gourds in the tree. lol
The next year I wanted to do that with luffa sponge seeds, but I wasn't a resident of that house the next spring. The ex wife almost always gets the house! lol
That happened to a friend of mine. It looked really crazy.
I also plant a few giant sunflowers (the ten foot tall ones) among the gourds. The grow up the sunflowers and the "handles", stems are straight. They turn out to be nice long handled dipper gourds.
Yesterday, I planted two 125 foot rows of gourd plants in my brother's garden. This year I planted them in pie shaped groups and put grass clipping between to cut down on the weeding.
Hopefully, next fall I will have hundreds of gourds! I love gourds.
Holy moly that is a lot of gourds. What on earth do you do with them all?
Holy moly that is a lot of gourds. What on earth do you do with them all?
I normally give them away to special education classrooms and kindergarten classrooms. I also dry them and give the dried gourds away. Over the last 20 years I probably gave away six thousand gourds. In some schools kids used to call me "The Gourd Lady".
I occasionally sell some of the dried gourds on eBay but I don't really make enough money to compensate me for all of my hard work.
We grew a tremendous amount of pumpkins one year, everything from Wee Be Littles to Atlantic Giants. I also threw in some Sunshine Hybrid squash (I think they gave us the seeds free as a bonus). We had enough to sell and were giving out the tiny pumpkins to kids on Halloween. They loved them! They take a lot of water though and we don't have time to devote to it now. I have been trying to grow the Sunshine squash again for 3 years because I loved them so much. First the squash bugs got them in my father-in-law's garden. The next year I had beautiful plants with tiny squash growing in my donkey's pasture (old hay and manure was great fertilizer!). Overnight the deer ate them down to bare stalks. GRRR! Last year we had a drought and I just couldn't get enough water to them. This year I planted some in beds next to the pool, not sure if the old seeds would grow. Seven of them came up! Now I have to figure where to transplant some, since there won't be enough space. But I WILL get my squash this year!
We planted some gourds one year and had a great time with them we were so amazed at the large leaves and pretty flowers.We had no idea we would have so many gourds,growing up in our hedges and up a old cut off tree.
That was several years ago and I still have a few left.I wonder if it is too late to plant some this year?
We planted some gourds one year and had a great time with them we were so amazed at the large leaves and pretty flowers.We had no idea we would have so many gourds,growing up in our hedges and up a old cut off tree.
That was several years ago and I still have a few left.I wonder if it is too late to plant some this year?
It depends on your growing season. Ornamental gourds mature in 90 days and hard shell gourds in 110 -120 days. The first heavy frost will kill the leaves but most of the gourds will be protected so you have until the second frost to pick them.
I planted some Tennessee Spinner gourds this year. They make great spinning tops.
Good luck. Gourds are lots of fun and make great fall decorations.
Sorry, I buy all my seeds. I have found that gourds grown in Wisconsin have few mature seeds inside (at least that is the way that they appear). Seeds for two 125 foot rows only cost about $12.
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