How do you harvest birdhouse gourds?

Harvesting Birdhouse Gourds Take a sharp knife and cut the stem of the gourd from the vine. Handle the gourds carefully because they bruise easily at this stage. Wipe off any moisture and keep them in a cool and airy place to dry for maybe 3 months.

You need to leave them alone. Aside from rotating them occasionally and removing the ones that are rotting, let them dry for a month or more. Large, heavy gourds may take as long as 6 months to completely dry. You may find that a crust or mold appears on the gourds as they dry.

It can be planted in any type of soil as long as you amend the soil and use fertilizers. Weather – gourds are not the plant to grow in the short season. In a warmer region, such as tropical or subtropical areas, gourds grow all year round and no offseason. In summer, gourds only need excess watering.

Each plant will give you 2 or 3 gourds of various sizes, but if you want super-long fruits, allow only one per plant. Unlike most gourds, snake gourds are edible, but need to be picked while still immature and tender.

After the one-week drying process place the gourds in a warm, dark, dry area for three to four weeks. This is the real curing process. After this, decorative gourds keep for three to four months.

Take a small piece of newspaper or “junk mail” and loosely wrap it around each gourd. You don’t want to wrap them too tightly, because the key to drying gourds is good air circulation, and a warm, dry place. The newspaper will help keep all of the gourds from rotting if one in the bunch starts to.

Harvest them when they are full-size, the skin is hardened, and the stem attached to the fruit turns brown. These thick-skinned gourds can take light frost. Cut off the vine with a sharp knife, leaving about 2” of stem.

Birdhouse gourds make an ideal gardening project for the whole family. The hard-shelled hanging fruits are not edible but are wonderful for craft projects such as creating decorative homes for the birds.

A stack of gourds makes an eye-catching decoration inside your home or outside in the yard. Fresh, uncured gourds may last for a few weeks before going bad. If you dry and preserve your gourds, though, they’ll last for many years.

Habit: Birdhouse gourd is an annual vine that can grow up to 30 feet. How to grow a birdhouse gourd: Sow seeds outside after any danger of frost, or indoors up to 8 weeks before the typical last frost date. Plant the large, flat seeds about an inch deep.

Gourds prefer full sun and rich well-drained soil that is rich in organic material. Sow the seeds outdoors after all danger of frost has passed and the weather is warm. … Gourds grow well on trellises or supports, keeping the fruits off the ground.

You might not have thought so, but gourds are actually an ideal cash crop for the small-scale gardener/farmer: You not only got the pleasure of watching the colorful “fruits” grow, but — if you’re at all artistically inclined — you can also paint the mature gourds and sell them for as much as $15 each.

If pollinated, the little gourds under the female blossoms will turn into actual gourds. If not pollinated, then they will simply shrivel up and die.

Since ridge gourd is a summer squash, it requires warm temperatures to grow, and grows best in air temperatures between 60 and 75 degrees F. Flowers drop in high temperatures, but fruit will continue to develop, even up to 100 degrees F. )

Gourds take about 180 days total from planting till they produce ripe fruit, as a result of their extra long germination process. Keep in mind that if you’re in a cold area, you’ll need to start your seeds 6-8 weeks before the last frost of the season.