Gourd Garden

Thank you for visiting our Garden Gallery. We often experiment with different aspects of Gourd Gardening and curing, this year we are planting the first generation seed of a cross pollination experiment between a Hyakunari, (our Japanese Bottle Gourd), and an African Zulu, a larger hour glass shaped kettle. The original seed of both these gourds we received about 3-4 years ago. Through our hand pollination technique, (available for educational purposes on our web site), we have managed to maintain a predictable regeneration of each of these gourds year after year.

Last year we hand pollinated male Hyakunari flowers with female Zulu flowers, and tied them off both before and after hand pollination to insure an unadulterated cross pollination between the two. The goal, and our hope is that this years seed will produce a gourd with the characteristics and shape similar to the Hyakunari, but about twice the size of a Hyakunari. Hyakunari's generally reach about 10 inches in height and weight in at about 12 pounds at harvest time, while the Zulu's are about 25 - 30 pounds. If successful, we should have a Hyakunari type bottle gourd, but significantly larger.

Those familiar with my type of gourd crafting are aware that I like to make trinket boxes with a catch ring lid from the Hyakunari's. If this cross pollination experiment is successful, we should be able to make a larger more versatile box with the same type of lid.

Most of the pictures posted here at the beginning of the summer 2005, are pictures of last years garden. As summer progresses and God willing, we will upload images of the new gourd as it develops.

A comparison of the variety of sizes and shapes of gourds. If you are not a gourd crafter and have little knowledge of gourds, these are a very versatile fruit which cures to a hardened shell like wood which can be painted, carved, wood burned, etc. Just about any art form can be used on a gourd, with a definite advantage, they are already hollow and easily converted into useful containers and decorations.

Dan's favorite of all gourds, the Japanese Hyakunari. Ideally shaped for a lidded box, nearly perfect size for a trinket box. The gourd while not being a mini gourd is still small enough to successfully oven dry, (see our gourd report on experimental methods of drying gourds), which leaves a nice light skinned gourd without the mold markings which is perfect for wood burning images, (Dan's favorite art form)

Another Sample of Hyakunari's growing together within our trellis. Hyakunari's are also ideal for trellis growing, they are not too heavy for the stem and vine, yet they are large enough to make functional containers.

This is our Hyakunari trellis. Simply built, we were given a couple of heavy duty cattle panels, constructed in a four inch square grid of thick galvanized metal wire. These panels are 52 inches tall and 15 feet long and very sturdy, (unlike typical cattle fencing). With some significant effort, we managed to bend a matching curve in the center of both panels with about a 1.5 foot radius curve, (3 ft. diameter, or in this case width), and using four metal fence line stakes for each panel, we rigged this nice little gourd trellis.

This is a view inside the trellis. Roughly 9 ft long and 6 1/2 feet high, the trellis makes an ideal gourd trellis allowing gourds like Hyakunaris and other small to med. sized gourds to hang and grow naturally without curving the bottle neck at the top of the gourd. By the end of the season the top and sides of this trellis were covered rather well with Hyakunari's.

This is one of our African Zulu's. The orange marker tape is marking it with it's cross pollination data. If you grow many gourds and either hand pollinate for purity or cross pollinate for experiment, it is good practice to mark each gourd securely so that accurate handling and isolation of your seed gourd from the rest of the gourds at harvest can be achieved easily.