Oh My Gourd

Here’s a way you can combine craft or interior decorating with your gardening

- Jennifer Stackhouse

Gourds are squash-like vegetables but they’re not grown to be eaten. Although you can eat them when they’re small, as they grow and mature they become bitter. Rather than being grown as an edible vegetable, this long, hard fruit is grown to be used. Gourds are fashioned into utensils such as bowls, decorated or carved as ornaments, and even turned into musical instruments such as drums, maracas and rattles.

Gourds are native to Asia and Africa and have been used as objects for more than 10,000 years. The gourd also spread to America where it has been grown and used for millennia.

PROPAGATION AND GROWING