Hope y'all have a great squash year!

karstopography wrote: ↑Sat Jul 04, 2020 10:07 am Just planted a few luffa gourd seeds, both the smooth and rough types. Sort of a test plot in the spot where my french filet beans were. Plan is to eat them in the immature green stage. Supposed to be strong climbing plants, but not really a squash, more a cousin to squash I think. I’m still planning to seed a plot or two of Tromboncinos for a fall crop, maybe later in July.

Those can be like those gourds I'm growing, and go crazy! However, if you get SVB, they are prone to that, be forewarned. But they can be used immature as a squash!
https://www.seriouseats.com/2011/04/ser ... quash.html

I have an edible gourd I’m trying. (kikinda competition strain). Is this a good length to pick and cook? Hopefully I didn’t wait too long, they grow very quickly.

[mention]jmsieglaff[/mention], the Baker Creek description says they are tender up to 4' long. It looks like you're there!

Thanks for posting this. It might be my toy for next year!

I will share our thoughts on taste as well. As far as the vine, it is extremely vigorous, it branches at every leaf, which I'm pruning so it doesn't take over the entire trellis, the main vine is already 12' long. I've strung some twine to let the vine jump from tomato support stakes across the garden. The leaves are very large and very soft, they feel neat. The flowers open at night, so I don't know if I have moths that would visit them at night, so I've manually pollinated in the morning, which has worked well (only 2 fruit set so far as the initial 6-7' of vine only produced male flowers--but all females it produced have set).

I would pick it now, and see if it is starting to get seeds. I grew something like that years ago, but it was nowhere that large - got to just over 3 ft, but best around 2 ft.

I harvested it and we will prepare it for dinner tomorrow!

I hope that you have a big family...

We cooked up the gourd, it was 30" no seeds, cut into circles as well as some zucchini cut into similar sized pieces (quarter circles). Seasoned it up, cooked it half on the grill and half in the oven, just to see if cooking method mattered. The zucchini was the unanimous winner by all, with both cooking methods. It offered better texture--more creamy compared to watery from the gourd. The watery nature of the gourd also seemed to reduce the seasoning flavor as well. The zucchini itself also had more flavor than the gourd. While the gourd wasn't bad nor offensive, it wasn't really anything we'll continue to use for cooking and will stick with zucchini/other vining summer squash. I'll let a few of the gourds grow to maturity for decoration.

I'm growing Jester F1 squash for the first time this year. It's described a Delicata-type winter squash with edible skin so maybe that is close enough to a summer squash for you? I know I've enjoyed eating Delicata squash that I got from the farmer's market so I'm looking forward to eating this one. It's supposed to have short vines, not bush like the Bush Delicata that I'm also growing.

I have been hand pollinating those gourds, early on, like is normally necessary with night time flowering plants, but the last couple of days I started seeing a very small beetle in many of the female flowers, when I'd go to apply the pollen, so maybe my work is done! It is striped, like a cucumber beetle, but the head is a different color, and, fortunately, I haven't seen any on my cucumbers - in fact, this is the only place I've seen it. And a really strange thing happened - one of the 4 gourd plants turned out to be something else, as it has orange flowers, like my butternuts! But the leaves look the same as the gourds - nothing like any of the other 3 winter squash out there. No female flowers, yet, so I have no idea what it is - I just hope that it's a moschata, or otherwise it will end up with SVB.

Too hot for C. pepohere in mid summer. Trying C.moschata now for the first time with the South Anna Butternut and Thai Rai Kaw Tok Pumpkin, one plant each up and growing now. I’m lucky as SVB has yet to find my garden, so I can plant C.pepo whenever the weather is right. I’ll put in the vining Tromboncino seeds in a week or two. Might try some another zucchini, a non vining pepo seeding those in August or early September.

My three luffa gourds are up and just starting to vine. I’ll see if they get any pollinators coming at night. I can always use the little paint brush if needed.

Those Tinda gourds, from India, a.k.a. apple gourds, obviously love the heat, as they have really taken off! I got those because they were listed as smaller, only growing to 4' or so, but they are past that already, and they have a huge number of vines, as well as a large number of gourds, a couple almost ready to harvest.
Tinda gourds, almost ready to harvest 7-16 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The larger round bottle gourd is almost ready to harvest; the long ones have a little longer to go, but they seem to have more gourds on them. I don't seem to find any more female flowers on the round one, but a few more on the long ones. Maybe when I pull the fully grown one, they will begin producing again.
Round bottle gourds, largest about 6 inches, almost ready to harvest. 7-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Bottle gourd, about 9 inches long, 7-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Last night, I took some cuttings from the two bottle gourd plants, and a bitter melon, and put them in the cloner, to see if they will root, like the cucumbers.

Yesterday I picked the first round bottle gourd, and today the first tinda gourd, which seemed quite heavy for its size.
15.6 oz Tinda gourd, beneath the 41 oz Round Bottle Gourd from the day before. 7-20 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

That 9" long one just about doubled in size in less than 3 days! I picked the two longest ones yesterday, and there are another half dozen ready to take off.
First long gourds picked - 7-21, long one 18 inches, 43 oz, small one 33 oz. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Long Bottle Gourd, picked 7-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Long Bottle Gourd, picked 7-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Something funny about this - I asked an Indian lady if she had any good ways to cook them, and she said that the had never had them!

I have one of each in my cloner, and all of them have rooted, so I told her son (he's the one I gave my "extra" pepper plants to) he could plant them, if they like the vegetables.

pepperhead212 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 16, 2020 12:44 am … And a really strange thing happened - one of the 4 gourd plants turned out to be something else, as it has orange flowers, like my butternuts! But the leaves look the same as the gourds - nothing like any of the other 3 winter squash out there. No female flowers, yet, so I have no idea what it is - I just hope that it's a moschata, or otherwise it will end up with SVB.

That's really interesting. Do the leaves smell like gourd leaves or like squash leaves? Are they soft like gourd leaves, or kind of spiny like squash leaves?

You should save seeds from the fruit.

Speaking of the smell of gourd plants, they smell just like wonderberry plants!

Nice gourds, by the way. I really love the look of those bottle gourds.

[mention]Shule[/mention] That orange blossomed squash on the trellis has very large leaves, more like the bottle gourds, and doesn't look anything like the 3 squash varieties I have in the ground. The stems and leaves are very spiny, like the bottle gourds, while the moschata types in the ground are not as spiny. No signs of any SVB yet, so that's good. I also see no female blossoms yet. All have so many male blossoms that I have to harvest some soon - that one Polaris butternut is the first female I've seen yet.

So I've harvested my first Kikinda (at 30 inches, only a baby) and am wondering, do I skin it before cooking? I've seen some bottle gourd and Cucuzza recipes where they said to use a carrot peeler to remove the skin first, but it seems pretty tender on the Kikinda and I'd hate to waste it if there is more of the flavor or nutrients in the skin.

[mention]zendog[/mention] Looking at the long bottle gourds, the skin barely looks hairy at all this time (maybe another variety, compared to the one I grew before), but the round one and the tinda gourd are definitely hairy, so that I will have to peel for. The long one I'll probably scrape - that takes a little less off.