\u00a9 2023 wikiHow, Inc. All rights reserved. Excellent taste 10-20-50-100 seeds. Remove the affected terminal shoot showing boreholes, Treat the gourd seeds with Trichoderma viride or Pseudomonas fluorescens 24 hours before sowing, Apply Pseudomonas fluorescens as soil application, Spray homemade garlic and insecticidal soap solution, Remove the affected plants in the early stages to control this pest. Sizes range from 6" - 7" diameter and 8" - 11" in height. Beyond Moroccan cuisine, you might come across the bottle gourd in dishes from other countries where it's a popular vegetable. Originating in Africa, Lagenaria is closely related to cucumber, squash, and melon, and has become widely distributed around the world. First of all, bottle gourds are true tropical plants; they relish hot and humid weather. Place it out of shade and where the plant gets at least 8 hours of sunlight each day. They demand space and a sturdy support structure such as a fence, arbor, or even a tree. Just added, this natural finish gourd birdhouse made with a bottle gourd. wikiHow, Inc. is the copyright holder of this image under U.S. and international copyright laws. Bitter bottle gourd should be discarded and not be used even after cooking. Bottle gourd is an excellent soft vegetable with delicate flavour; both sweet and spicy dishes can be prepared from it. Its intensely branched stems bear musky, deep green, broad leaves just similar as that in pumpkins, and white, monoecious flowers in the summer. When they purchased their property in 2009, they. 104. If your gourd forms mold on the surface, just wash it off with vinegar or soapy water again. Spacing between seedlings. This image is not<\/b> licensed under the Creative Commons license applied to text content and some other images posted to the wikiHow website. You can also pound the fibers out and turn them into handmade paper sheets. Gourds like field pumpkin and calabash have very hard shells, but their edible fillings can be eaten in savory recipes similar to squash. Yellow and black and long means you have cucumber beetles, and they'll destroy your gourd plants in a heartbeat. The wider, seed-containing portion of the fruit varies from flat to round, cylindrical, club-shaped, or long and narrow. Manage squash bugs by keeping the garden clean and removing the previous years gourd plants and any other debris from the area. The more colorful gourds spawn yellow flowers and have thinner shells. It is also known as white-flowered gourd. Cut a dowel measuring around 2 inches to 2 1/2 inches. Once fully dried, they can be painted or have holes cut in them for use as birdhouses (once you shake out the seeds), or for many other crafts. Half a bottle gourd should yield about 2 cups of grated flesh. 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