Organic Birdhouse Gourd

Description

HEIRLOOM As I write, a Winter Wren is popping out of a birdhouse gourd on our porch and Friends, there is such joy in growing your own birdhouse gourds, well before they house any avian neighbors! Birdhouse gourds are easy to grow with massive vines (often 15 to 20 feet or more!) and abundant velvet white flowers swelling into 5 to 8 marvelously whimsical gourds per plant. If you’d love them to all to be similar shapes, send them up a trellis!

Growing Tips! More than any other seed we share, birdhouse gourds need every ounce of light and warmth we have here in Zone 5, so be sure to sow them early. Though squash prefer to be direct sown, if you grow in Zone 5 or colder we recommend starting them in 2-inch soil blocks 2 weeks before final frost. If true leaves are emerging before it’s time to transplant, pot them up into 4-inch containers so their roots resist stress. Also, as your 20+ foot vines are sprawling like green octopus arms across your garden, feel free to trim the ends of the vines to focus their energy on fruit rather than vegetative growth. And great news: an entirely separate genus/species than ‘classic’ winter squash, birdhouse gourds are less susceptible to powdery mildew and other prevalent squash diseases, making it easier to harvest all the more birdhouse gourds for you and all future generations to come ~

Sow Seeds & Sing Songs,

& the whole Fruition Crew