Carolina Gourds and Seeds
259 Fletcher Ave, Fuquay Varina, North
Carolina 27526 (919-557-5946)
Growing gourds is a fun for the whole family. Not only can you have fun while growing gourds you can also paint and dye gourds, craft or decorate them after they are dried and either sell them or give them away as gifts. You can make a bird house for birds. Bird house gourds are noted to be the choice for birds. A nice crafted gourd can become gourd art. Gourds, gords, goards and gorde are some of the ways we spell gourds.
Gourds will grow and spread on long vines like pumpkins. They will need plenty of room to spread. Smaller gourds such as dipper, apple and luffa can be trained to climb up a trellis. A few gourd plants can be grown by everyone. When gourds are mature they will dry and have a pretty hard shell. Harvesting gourds at the right time is important. "When is the right time"? My suggestion is to leave the gourds in your garden until frost has come and your growing season is over. This way you will obtain the most growing time as possible for maturing each gourd.
Pre-soaking. Seeds should be soaked in warm water for over night, then planted in a 4 or 6 inch pot. Place each pot in a warm area where the temperature will be 85 or 90 degrees. Gourd seeds like high temperatures to germination well. Without good warm soil temperatures you success in germinating gourd seeds will not be very good. Seeds can be planted directly outside in the soil. Plant several seeds in a hill to ensure the success of having a plant in each hill. I put 2 or 3 seeds in a hill, but space them by 3 or 4 inches. This way I can transplant from hills where two or more came up to hills where none came up. Starting seed indoors in "seed starting mixes" can also lengthen the growing season for gourd maturity. Seed usually germinate within two weeks, but can take longer and sometimes as long as five weeks after planting. I usually start several seeds in a 4 or 6 inch pot, then repot them after they germinate, just like "transplanting" small tomato seedlings. In the beginning this will save you some time, soil and space. Some folks will not recommend transplanting because it disturbs the roots, but I have found no problem with doing this.
Hardshell gourds mature in 110-130 days and giant gourds (like the African wine kettle, the giant bushel gourd) will take longer as much as 130-170 days, so if you plant directly in the garden plant as soon as the soil warms up in the spring. In the North Carolina late April through mid-June is good but plant hardshell gourds as early as possible after frost. Hardshell gourds are dipper, apples bushels and many more. These gourds will have white flower on them. Ornamental gourd can be planted later (yellow flowers). Too early, wet or cold can make the seed rot if they are planted directly in the garden.
Gourds will grow in any type of soil, but light, well-drained soil is the best. If you have soil that is hard, rocky or mostly clay, a raised bed might be a consideration. Have your soil tested to determine if lime or additional nutritional are needed. Gourds like a pH range of 5.9 - 6.3.
Like most garden plants gourds don't like weeds, drought or bugs. They also do not like diseases like anthracnose, bacterial wilt and mildew. You can control most of the these problems by keeping your gourds free of weeds and having a good spray program. Check with your local garden center or county agriculture agent to determine the best insect control to use. I will say that gourds are very determined plants and will produce some gourds even under adverse conditions.
Gourds will produce on each plant both male and female flowers. Female flowers will have the small gourd under the petals. To encourage female flowers cut the main vine when it has reached a length of 10 -15 feet. This will encourage the secondary vines to grow and it is on the secondary vines that the gourd will appear. Insects and bees carry pollen from male to female flowers. Bees are the predominate pollinators of gourds. Honey bees like to pollinate the ornamental gourds (yellow flowers) and bumble bees like to pollinated the hard shell gourds (white flowers). Other insects will pollinate gourds as well. The more pollination that is done, the more gourds you will have as well as seeds. Generally, the more seeds pollinated in a gourd the larger the gourd will be. Pollen can be transferred with an small brush or by taking the male flower and using it to pollinate the female. Just clip off the male flower and carry it over to the female flower and gently tap on the male flower stem so as to knot pollen off unto the female.
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