pepperhead212
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Re: Anybody here with experience growing bottle gourds?

Hopefully I won't get any of these, or the melons I'll have on the trellises, ripped off by wind. Last season, I had some tomatoes brought down, because the trellis was the nylon type, and was torn, due to the massive number of tomato leaves catching the wind. So this season, only CRW for heavy plants, plus spacing them out more.

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Once the vines get going they can get to 50 ft or more. I found this article that might suggest a way to get more blossoms and explain the lack of fruit set.

https://www.mykitchengarden.info/2014/0 ... gourd.html

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Thanks for the link, imafan26. They sort of suggest the usual ways of setting more fruit, or getting the fruit larger (removing some of it!), and they suggest clipping the vines, though much shorter than I was going to clip these. I'll just wait until it reaches the end of the trellis.

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The Botelya Squash sprouted. Five of them so far, which should be plenty. Image

Image

pepperhead212
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Here's that first bottle gourd ready to be harvested, about 3 1/2" wide, and 10" high, probably more tomorrow, when I cut it:
ImageDSCF0718 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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Harvested that first bottle gourd today, 46.2 oz.
ImageDSCF0719 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here it is halved and quartered, showing how little the seeds are developed in the 10" fruit:
ImageDSCF0721 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Cooks up much like a summer squash, staying a little firmer, and with a very mild flavor, but maybe more than in a zucchini. If it grows well, I won't have to worry about summer squash - so far, no signs of SVB at all!

Today I trimmed the tips of all those vines grown to the ends of the trellis. I have to do that soon with the melons, as well.

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Very nice! I’m amazed you already have first harvest.

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Apple - these are listed as 50-55 days, so this was almost perfect!

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I made my first dish with that bottle gourd today - Bottle gourd with chilis and curry leaves. Relatively simple - I wanted one with not too many ingredients, so the flavor of the vegetable would not be covered up, as I figured that it would be mild. It has more flavor than summer squash, but not much. And the gourd is not spongy yet, at this size. The pieces still had some bite to them, even after cooking 15 min., which would turn most summer squash to mush.

The two quartered pieces on the right were used in this dish:
ImageDSCF0721 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The other ingredients, measured out:
ImageDSCF0722 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished dish:
ImageDSCF0723 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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That was one of the double gourds. You can make tinola, substituting the gourd for green papaya. Papaya would be even firmer longer. Malunggay is also Moringa which is popular as a medicinal plant now. If you don't have malunggay leaves, spinach works. Right about now the malunggay is fruiting. The young pods are also good in soup.

https://panlasangpinoy.com/2014/12/02/c ... la-recipe/

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I am planning on trying this for the Thai dish Som Tum - also made with green papaya, and a favorite of mine. It has some cherry tomatoes, garlic, fresh Thai chilis, dried shrimp, fish sauce, and shredded green papaya. I have made it with a few others, most often Kohlrabi. I was pleasantly surprised at how firm this was when harvested this large, and it should shred well. It will probably make a good vegetable pasta, also.

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Today I harvested something new, though I'm not sure what I am going to use it for: some tendrils and the end shoots with tender leaves, from the bottle gourds (plus melons and bitter melons, probably, as there are a bunch of all these vines out there!).
ImageDSCF0749 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Those gourds are starting to produce well. I'll soon have more than I know what to do with, from just two plants! Here is jsut one group of the short variety. You can judge the length from the 6" squares on the trellis:
ImageDSCF0748 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And here's one of the long ones, about 8", but skinnier than the short variety:
ImageDSCF0747 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Quite a few of the earliest fruits did not get pollinated, I guess since there were not enough (or any!) males open when the female blossoms would open, and they aren't like Cucurbita squash, on which the flowers open and close several days, in most cases. Seems these just open one time, and that's it, so I started hand pollinating them, until there were so many males open at any one time, that the females wouldn't go without.

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I harvested one of that long variety I took the photo of on the last post. This one grew 5" in two days - 13" now.
It gets twice that long, but I'm going to increase bit by bit, to see if and when they get seedy and soft, like summer squash do, at a smaller size.
ImageDSCF0771 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageDSCF0772 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

This definitely looks like a keeper, as they are getting loaded now - more on just 2 plants than I'll be able to eat! One of the things I'm going to try with it is making "vegetable noodles", and something I'm going to try with it (which I've tried with other neutral veggies, in place of green papaya) is Som Tum, a favorite Thai dish of mine, using cherry tomatoes, garlic and chilies from the garden.

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These things are like some sort of squash on steroids! Here are three more - 40, 46, and 15 oz ones, and many more out there to follow. Heat doesn't seem to bother them, but then, they are from the tropics! Yet, the cool that stunted my peppers didn't stunt them, from what I could tell.
ImageDSCF0794 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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Thanks for keeping us updated @pepperhead212. This is all very interesting. :()
Have you made a pasta out of these yet? Are you using a spiral shaver or a similar gadget?

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Apple,
I just got a spiralizer delivered yesterday - made by Bella, whose Food Processor was the top rated mid size, when Serious Eats did a comparison recently, so I figured it was a good brand. I haven't used it yet, but will soon.
Besides the noodles, I thought of something else to try to make with them: chips. I thought of these when I was thinking about dehydrating them, as I have done with eggplants. I see zucchini chips all the time, so why not use these?

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5 more of these things! One, the one next to the tomatoes, I missed, and left it there too long, and is the first one that started softening. The rest - 3 longs and one short - are all firm, as all have been, so far.
ImageDSCF0806 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

ImageDSCF0816 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Question for you apple (since you are in this area): I'm wondering about a very small beetle I find in almost every single blossom I have opened when hand pollinating these things, male or female, and it looks like a miniature striped cucumber beetle. But they are small, maybe 3/8" x 3/16", and all pretty much the same size, so I figure it's something else. Plus, I don't see them on the leaves, or eggs like those beetles, either. I'll have to take a photo of them (if they will show, this small), if I can get them before flying away.

Sound like anything you've seen?

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The harvest looks terrific, pepperhead212. I’m curious about those green tomatoes....?

RE striped beetles — yes I have seen them. Do you mean that they are smaller than the Spotted Cucumber Beetles or that you have seen striped cucumber beetles that are larger than these? Because I’ve always assumed these smaller ones ARE the STRIPED Cucumber Beetles. Now I’m wondering if I have been mistaken....

In my garden, they are almost always found inside the cucurbit blossoms. I’ve noted that when I find wilted young leaves or a wilted length of side shoots or vines, I would almost inevitably find SPOTTED cucumbers beetles, but never the smaller (about 1/2 the size) striped ones. Spotted ones arrive later than the striped ones, along with the leaf-foots and squash bug stinkbugs, and then the wholesale slow destruction of the cucurbits (particularly melon vines) begins. I’ve mostly decided the striped ones might be benign....

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My mistake, Apple - those large striped beetles I always see are the Colorado potato beetle. I have seen those more than the spotted cucumber beetles, through the years, yet I haven't grown potatoes since sometime in the 90s. And I've never noticed these small ones, but then, I'm usually looking on leaves. Fortunately, Surround keeps most of these bugs off. Tomorrow, after this heavy rain goes through tonight, I'll be able to "re-surround" everything out there. I'm hoping that growing the melons on the trellis this year will allow me to cover the leaves better, and the bugs won't decimate them, as in years past. I don't grow any cucumbers other than County Fair, due to bacterial wilt, spread by these bugs.

Those green tomatoes are Green Tigers, a delicious and productive artisan tomato, which is always one of the first to ripen in my garden. I also grew purple bumblebees and sunrise; the purples had a delicious, but milder flavor, and the sunrise I probably liked the most, but it wasn't stabilized - one plant would have smaller fruits, while another would be elongated, like the green tiger. The drawback to all of them was that the plants could be totally wiped out by a high heat heat wave, not just drop their blossoms. I still grow 2 green tigers every season, however.

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The seeds will be smaller if you pick them when they are about a foot long. They can still be eaten up to 3 ft long but the seeds will be bigger. I usually have to split a big one with someone since it is too much for one dish and cut squash does not keep long.
When the squash get very big or old, it is too hard to eat, but can still be used to make gourd strips (kampyo).If you leave the bigger ones on the vine at the end of the season it can get up to 5 ft long (if it has space), and it will dry and the seeds can be saved for another year. The round opo can be dried and can be made into bowls (calabash) or hats.

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Ah but you grow eggplants, pepperhead212, and Colorado potato beetles like eggplant foliage almost MORE than potatoes’.

Kanpyo is dehydrated strips right? Do you/have you made them yourself, imafan26? Is it as easy as slicing thin and dehydrating? Or hanging the strips to dry? Do they need to be soaked in acid or alkaline solution to keep from turning brown or something first?

I’ve only ever used them for tying konbu (sea kelp) in place around salmon to stew for the Japanese New Years’ dish. That’s one of my favorites.

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Apple, Years ago, the only time I grew potatoes, I discovered that potato bugs liked EPs, so much so, jthat mine were reduced to a netting almost overnight! This is why I don't grow potatoes; while the bugs barely bothered them, they were an insect magnet, and the bugs destroyed other plants.

imafan, All of the gourds that I have harvested so far, up to 22" and 46 oz from the long variety, and about 10", and around a pound from the short variety (Dhal) have been firm, except for that one next to the tomatoes above, which is just starting to get soft. However, all, including that one, have had no seeds developing - only that translucent spot where the seeds will form eventually. Usually, summer squash gets overmature long before this, so I considered this good. I just have to watch closely, so I don't miss any more in that jungle of vines! And now I have the bitter melons and muskmelons to add to the jungle!

Speaking of dehydrating, here's something I did with one of them. I was thinking that I would have so many that I'd have to dehydrate them, like I do eggplants, and when I started to look up dehydrating zucchini, I thought of zucchini chips!
ImageDSCF0795 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished chips:
ImageDSCF0802 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I forgot to weigh them before and after - I'll do that next time. Took about 18 hours on 135, which surprised me, as larger things often dry faster on lower temps. Was probably the small amount of oil added. I seasoned them lightly, based on a zucchini chip recipe I found, and they were good, but next time I'll season them heavier, maybe with some Thai seasoning, adding some tamarind instead of vinegar, for the sour, and some fish sauce, plus, of course, heat!

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Last night, since I was dehydrating some other things, I cut up that larger bottle gourd, and cut it into fairly large pieces - larger than bite size, for sure - and packed them so close on a shelf I could not fit another one on, without them touching. It reduced to 1/20th of its original weight, and here's what it looked like:
ImageDSCF0841 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I think this will be better to make the chips with!

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Something that I did today, which I realized that I had to do, was trim away at least half of those vines from those bottle gourd plants. They had reached a point where they almost stopped producing, after I couldn't pick them fast enough for a couple weeks. I figured that all those vines and leaves were just too much for that one stalk coming out of the container to feed! So carefully, I pulled all of the oldest ones off, many of which were getting yellowed leaves, and vines that had produced, but I had cut off at the ends, and left some of the newest looking ones, closest to the main stem, which is thick and hard now (no signs of SVB, something I watch for with anything like this!). I got almost en entire trash can full of leaves and vines! No signs of any diseases or bugs, usually found on squash, but then, it's early in the season. Last night, I saw only a few of the white flowers opened up around 8 pm, which is what made me think to do this. I'll see how soon the plants respond to the cut backs.

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That trimming did help. The flowers are opening much more now, and 2 almost full sized gourds are already on each plant, with more beginning to grow,as well as new vines. I'll have to be diligent about removing the old leaves and vines, to keep them growing. Maybe next year I'll try some succession plantings, since the output from one plant at a time is more than enpugh.

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Dave, I'm glad you started this thread. I only read it today, because when I hear (read) the word 'gourd', I assume something inedible. I'd love to grow a vining zucchini sub. Zucchini close to the ground ends up getting too much shade in my yard.

I'm one of those sad gluten-free people and spiralized zucchini is my favorite noodle sub. I bought an electric spiralizer, but it's a total dud. I went back to the hand-held one I used before. My go-to is just to sautee it in some butter and/or olive oil plus herbs. It works nicely with just about any sauce, too.

I wonder how the bottle gourds would do in a zucchini lasagna.

Anyway, thanks for the inspiration. This is on my to-try list for next summer.

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Glad I could help, Kayjay. Though these things are grown more in the tropics, the cool weather I had early on, that stunted my peppers and eggplants, didn't seem to hold these back at all! So they should do well for you in your area. And another thing I've noticed is that they store fairly well, as I have a couple on my counter for a couple weeks! Must be sort of like waxy melons, though not as obvious as those.

Here's one of the newest ones:
ImageDSCF0880 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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Here is a photo with one of the two short variety that I harvested today, just 5 days after the severe pruning. In between that one, and a bitter melon I also harvested today, is one I removed during the pruning, as it had simply stopped growing. You can see the difference that pruning made!
ImageDSCF0883 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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That’s fantastic. I see that partially grown, stuck in development fruits on cucumbers sometimes. I wonder if similar pruning treatment would help? I will have to remember this.

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I hadn't thought of that, apple, but I know what you mean about the cukes. I have also had some like that in the past. I have one plant this year that has an incredible number of side shoots, and I'll have to keep an eye on those, for this same problem.

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Usually when I see gourds that are fat on the stem end and skinny on the blossom end, it was because it was raining when the flowers were out and there was uneven pollination. Gourds do keep a while after picking but we usually use them within a week. We may share a larger one since they don't keep well after it has been cut.

I don't know how well they do as noodles but older ones that are a little too tough to eat can be sliced into strips and dried to make kampyo.

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These things must have been grown on steroids! Here is the latest harvest (along with some other things!), and I trimmed a bunch more dying leaves today, so that should trigger them again. Incredible production.
ImageDSCF0891 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

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Some of these finally started developing seeds, and a spongy center, like zucchini - the long variety, at about 36 oz ( I had some get to 46 oz before, with no signs of it). So I'll have to watch them closely, and remove them before they get too large from now on. The small ones were still ok to use on the spiralizer. And I froze about a cup of the noodles, to see how it would hold up to freezing.

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It is easy to get 20 or more gourds from a healthy vine. Usually, we let some of the last ones go to seed, so we can plant them again. The seeds keep pretty well for at least a couple of years. I'd be interested to hear how they fare. I have never tried to freeze them.

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I left one of those bottle gourds on the plant for too long (got distracted from the garden, working on that tub project) - it got to 71 oz., and I'm sure it got spongy and seedy inside, like zuke does when it gets overgrown. But I'm going to scrape it out, when I cut it open, and try to make some pickles, using a recipe for zucchini pickle spears. I'll let you know how it turns out.
It doesn't really look that much larger than the 32 oz one, sitting right next to it:
ImageDSCF0914 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Later, I'll have to go out and trim a lot of those old leaves, and trigger the flowering again, as it seems to have slowed down again.

Today I went into a new Indian grocery store, that a store owner I used to deliver to told me about. They had these, both the long and the shorter one, and had them labeled "light squash", I guess referring to the color. I didn't ask yet, but maybe this is a place I can barter some of these things at.

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I ordered my seeds. I was doing some reading, and I didn't realize that these are Opo squash! They sell them at all the grocery stores around here. I've tried them before and I know I liked it. I love living in an ethnically-diverse city. ;)

Dave (or others) can I bug you with a couple of questions?

1. Do you remember what your seeds looked like? I believe they're supposed to look brown, shriveled-up, and almost rectangular. But one of the other customers on amazon said the seeds looked like pumpkin seeds. There was no follow-up from that customer. All of the other reviews were positive. I'll be interested to see what these ones look like.

2. Did you ever cook up your frozen noodles? How were they?

TIA. :)



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