The Gourd Patch
I've been wanting to post about my gourd patch all summer. This is the 3rd year I've been trying to grow these buggers up here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
For the past two summers, my squash, pumpkins and gourds were taken out by the powdery mildew disease. For two summers I tried to keep it contained with chemical free products. I researched from organic bloggers and professionals online, I made up my own non-toxic home-made brew, I trimmed the bad leaves every day, I made sure they never were watered too late in the day, and in the end, the powdery mildew won long before the summer was over.
It is so discouraging to see something that you tend to every day be choked out like that and all you can do is watch it happen. So this year, I used the toxic powdery mildew killer and I had my first successful harvest of gourds.
The bottle suggested 19 applications throughout the growing season and I only applied the stuff 7 times, so that makes me feel a bit better, plus, the gourds aren't for consumption, they will be birdhouses. I doused them the most when they were small and after they had established a good root system. Then just a couple of times when they matured.
All of the information that I could find online about growing gourds was from gourd people in southern states. The main thing I was looking for was how to harvest them. In the southern states, they just leave them on the vine...sometimes all winter to dry.
Where I live, it gets cold early so they have a shorter growing season and you have to pick them probably earlier than they should be picked.
All in all, I'm just happy that they grew this year. Next year I'm going to start the seeds earlier and add compost to the growing site.
I grew them for a project of making birdhouses out of them.
The squatty round ones have a loofa type sponge in the middle and I plan to try making a bar of soap with these ones.
The directions were to pick the gourd leaving a long stem intact. It seems the stem has something to do with the curing process. I also washed each gourd with a bleach water solution to kill any bacteria that may be looming. For right now, I have the gourds in the garage in a well-ventilated area. I plan to keep them in there until the temperature dips below freezing on a steady basis.
This is what they look like now but by the time they are finished curing, they should be an ugly brown color. We shall see what happens and how long it takes.
Thanks for checking out the refurbished Mama!
For the past two summers, my squash, pumpkins and gourds were taken out by the powdery mildew disease. For two summers I tried to keep it contained with chemical free products. I researched from organic bloggers and professionals online, I made up my own non-toxic home-made brew, I trimmed the bad leaves every day, I made sure they never were watered too late in the day, and in the end, the powdery mildew won long before the summer was over.
It is so discouraging to see something that you tend to every day be choked out like that and all you can do is watch it happen. So this year, I used the toxic powdery mildew killer and I had my first successful harvest of gourds.
The bottle suggested 19 applications throughout the growing season and I only applied the stuff 7 times, so that makes me feel a bit better, plus, the gourds aren't for consumption, they will be birdhouses. I doused them the most when they were small and after they had established a good root system. Then just a couple of times when they matured.
All of the information that I could find online about growing gourds was from gourd people in southern states. The main thing I was looking for was how to harvest them. In the southern states, they just leave them on the vine...sometimes all winter to dry.
All in all, I'm just happy that they grew this year. Next year I'm going to start the seeds earlier and add compost to the growing site.
I grew them for a project of making birdhouses out of them.
The directions were to pick the gourd leaving a long stem intact. It seems the stem has something to do with the curing process. I also washed each gourd with a bleach water solution to kill any bacteria that may be looming. For right now, I have the gourds in the garage in a well-ventilated area. I plan to keep them in there until the temperature dips below freezing on a steady basis.
This is what they look like now but by the time they are finished curing, they should be an ugly brown color. We shall see what happens and how long it takes.
Thanks for checking out the refurbished Mama!
Comments
Post a Comment