It’s that time of year in our zone for gourd planting! Growing gourds can be a very exciting and interesting adventure.  Meadowbrooke Gourds is located in Central Pennsylvania, which is in Zone 6 of the United States frost zone.  The instructions that we are going to share are based upon our zone and will vary if you live in different parts of the United States.  It is best to know what zone you are in when planning to grow gourds.

We begin our gourds inside by planting up to but no more than 2 seeds in a 3″ container or pot.  When you are finished potting your seeds-THOROUGHLY soak with water until it flows out the bottom of the pot.  After the initial watering, water like you would a normal house plant.  Soil for gourd seedlings can be on the dry side but do not let it dry out completely.  Keep seedlings in sun.  The more sun they receive, the stronger the plant you will have.  If they receive less light, you may have thin, less hearty plants.  You do not need to fertilize seedlings while they are still inside.

Around June 1st or AFTER THE THREAT OF FROST (this is very important, frost will kill your plants), plant outside in full sun leaving an 8′ area around each plant.  Each plant should have 64 square feet to grow in.  Gourd vines will take over fences, trelises, and other plants if left alone.  An option is to cut or trim ends back to keep them confined to an area.

When watering your plants, avoid getting water on the leaves to avoid the spread of diseases.  We suggest you use soaker hoses or drip irrigation.  Gourd plants actually like to be a little dry and be watered thoroughly when you start to see the leaves wilting.  Overwatering causes disease, large, thin shelled, low quality gourds with lots of vines.  Not enough water produces thick shelled, small, high quality gourds.  Just enough water produces thick shelled, properly sized, high quality gourds.

Check on gourds like you would any other plant that is in your garden.  You can fertilize your gourds like you would any other vine crop (cucumber, watermelon, pumpkins, etc.).  The optimal choice would be to have a soil test conducted and fertilize accordingly.

Happy Growing! Don’t forget, we offer gourd seed packets for sale on our website.

Gourd crafters, check out our new, expanded area for raw gourds at our Retail Store!

We get a lot of questions about our processes of growing, harvesting, drying, and crafting here at Meadowbrooke Gourds and we love talking about what we do.

Here are just a few facts and insight into the growing process at our gourd farm!

We grow 50 varieties of gourds on 20 acres and harvests about 250,000 to 300,000 gourds each year. Growing season begins in early spring when seeds are started in the farm’s hothouses. The seedlings are then transplanted by hand into the fields with row covers protect the young plants. We water them using a drip irrigation system.

Pollination does occur nationally by moths, but a team of seasonal workers use cotton swabs to carry pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers to fertilize as many flowers as possible. Each gourd flower is only open for one night.  The moths still continue the process naturally, but we started hand-pollinating about five years ago just to ensure the yield. The entire process is very hands-on and labor-intensive from start to finish.

The gourds continue to mature through the first frost!

We welcome tours of our gourd farm. Click here for more information.

Kristen from the Cumberland Valley PA blog wrote a great post about our farm tours here at Meadowbrooke Gourds!

We wanted to repeat her post for you to give an idea of the process to create our finished products:

Meadowbrooke Gourds’ Tour is Worth the Trip

Our black cat, Raven

Just other day I finally had the chance to take the tour of Meadowbrooke Gourds. I hear about this place all the time and always wanted to check it out. It was really cool and the tour guide was very informative. You start out in the gift shop which is neat to start a tour by seeing what the finished product can look like. You then go back to see where the gourds are placed after they are picked and cleaned. They are put in a huge circle washer to get all the dirt off and make them smooth. After they go through the washer someone sands them down to make them perfectly smooth and attaches stems if they fall off.
Then they are taken to a crafting room. Where they are painted and turned into, on this day, cute little black cats for the upcoming Halloween season. Someone was making the face for the cat, others were painting them black and one person was making little felt scarves for them to wear. It was also fun to hear that the people who work there get to come up with the ideas for the next featured gourd. They all make one and then the team votes on it. I wouldn’t highly recommend taking the tour but more than that visit on a day where you can create a gourd… if it’s good enough you may find it in their next catalog!

Read the original post and visit the Cumberland Valley PA blog here.

Public tours of our gourd plant will be held during our fall open houses on Friday, October 22nd 10:00 am – 7:00 pm and Saturday, October 23rd 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. We will also be giving wagon rides and holding our “Thank You Sale.” We hope to see you soon!