Years ago, when we had kids around who needed regular outdoor debouncing, we grew gourds.
Gourds are magic. You plant a seed, the vine grows, the flowers bloom and the gourds grow and grow and grow, in weird shapes or glorious colours. And you can watch them do it.
We grew giant trumpet gourds – the kind you can use to store the family lentils in and did. We painted others, letting the seeds rattle inside, and the kids used them as maracas to dance with or to throw instead of a ball. We grew funny shaped and multicoloured coloured ones, with the whole family inspecting them each day to see their shapes and colours change.
Gourds are fun. There are many varieties and species of gourds available, from tiny multi-coloured, decorative ones (just pile them in the fruit bowl for a year's home decorating) to enormous gourd-shaped gourds. Basically, the bigger the gourd, the longer it takes for them to mature and, while you may get a nice crop of half-grown, good-looking giant gourds in a cool summer, they may not last very long. Like pumpkins, gourds need to be fully ripe to have hard and thick shells.
One of the best gourds for food storage is the bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria. It has a bulbous base and narrow neck – the typical gourd shape. It turns from green to brownish as it ripens. It can be also be eaten like a zucchini when young and tender, though if you do that you'll get fewer or smaller gourds. The edible description though is important, as it means that possibly toxic substances won't leach into whatever you store in your gourd.
Gourds do best in a hot summer. The large kinds take about a hundred and twenty-five HOT days to ripen. This is not the same as a hundred and twenty-five frost-free days, which can be cool and wet. If you suspect you won't get those hundred and twenty five hot days – and I rather hope we won't – grow a smaller variety.
Treat gourds like pumpkins. Give them a heck of a lot of feeding, as much hen manure or processed similar product as you can – as long as it's decomposed it's hard to over feed them. Water the stem, not the leaves, as conditions that are wet then dry can encourage downy mildew. Plant them in the hottest, sunniest spot you can – sprawling over the lawn is fine, as long as you don't care much about the lawn. You can mow it again in winter. Admire them often. I have a feeling gourds enjoy being admired as they mature.
Pick your gourds only once the stem dries out or starts to shrivel – or just before frost zaps them. Gourds may look okay after frost, but they'll rot very soon indeed if they have been frost damaged.
Once you've picked them, dry gourds in the sun for two to three weeks after picking to harden the skins. Take indoors at night to keep them out of the dew or if it rains. If you go to work every day, at least leave them on a table or a window sill by a sunny window, and make sure that you turn them around every day, so each part gets direct sunlight in its turn.
I still have several gourds I grew twenty-five years ago. Gourds look neater if you sand them before you paint them, but you certainly don't have to. Painted gourds last longer, but most gourds will last at least a year. On a dry kitchen shelf, holding rice or other dry goods, they'll last for years.
There are many other ways of treating gourds so they last longer and keep better. The coloured ones can be dried, then painted with lacquer, but even without that they'll keep their colour for about five years or so in a bowl on the bench, as long as they are kept out of direct sunlight, though they'll fade a bit with the years.
Various African cultures traditionally dried gourds over fires for several weeks, then rubbed in animal fat or oil, again over a period of several weeks. If you don't happen to have a fire going for a few weeks, place the gourd in a slow oven for ten minutes, take out, rub in oil. Allow to cool. Repeat this about ten times, gradually increasing the temperature of the oven till the gourd darkens about three or four shades.
Don't give your gourds one quick baking, or you'll end up with either a cooked gourd or a brittle one or just a blackened mess. Slow and gradual and low heat is the only way to do it. You can also use gourds as bowls or mugs, but make sure they are well dried after each wetting. This doesn't mean just towel dry but totally dry like washing that has been near a fire or heater or in the sunlight.
Never use a gourd that isn't edible for storage. Never give a young child a toxic gourd to play with in case they stuff it in their mouth, either. Don't let kids still at the 'chew everything' stage play with any gourd for that matter. Kids can choke on the seeds if they gnaw through them, which they often do.
There is an ancient Chinese craft of shaping gourds as they grow. This needs to be done with some expertise, or the gourd can rot, but I find tying string or tape around a small gourd as it grows is a reasonably foolproof way of reshaping them.
Ripe and hardened gourds can be drilled, or cut with sharp or serrated knives. I find the younger the gourd, the easier it is to cut them – the harder they get, the more brittle and easily shattered. Painting both inside and out means they last longer, but a well dried gourd should last about three years, at least, without any further treatment.
Gourds make great: maracas, soup bowls, table lamps (try strengthening the inside with a layer of plaster of Paris), egg cups, dog's drinking bowls (must be non-toxic), bird seed containers, bird baths, soap dishes, fruit bowls or giant earrings. We also have a thumb piano sitting on our wall, a gourd back inset with wood and lengths of metal to 'ping' in tune. It's fun – but not a hundredth of the fun we had watching the kids' faces, as the weird and wondrous shapes gradually matured in the garden.
This week I'm
• not mowing- new clumps of native orchids have erupted in the grass, which gives us a perfect excuse not to mow for weeks, if not months.
• planting, planting, planting and daring the sky to give us a frost again;
• counting the cherry blossom… three million and six, three million and seven… and reminding myself that every flower doesn't mean a fruit;
• hoping the supply of home-grown navel oranges in the fridge lasts till the first apples and apricots of the season are ripe;
• trying to give away limes; and
• beginning a summer of mulching to keep down weeds.
