Re: Gourds
On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 01:56:31AM -0800, CONNIE GIAMBRA wrote:
> I've been told by several people not to plant gourds anywhere near my
> pumpkins, in fact, not to plant them at all if I want my pumpkins to look
> like pumpkins.
> Is this true?
Not exactly. There are two kinds of gourds: the small colorful knobby
ones, which are species cucurbita pepo, and the green hard-shelled
gourds, which are species lageneria siceraria. C. pepo is often used
for harvest decorations while L. siceraria is use for crafts, making
instruments and dippers, etc.
C. pepo are members of the squash family and can cross pollinate
with other c. pepo species, which include summer squash and some
pumpkins. However, Atlantic Giants are species cucurbita maxima
and won't cross with either type of gourd so if you are growing AG's
you can grow all the gourds you like.
Even if you are growing some kind of c. pepo pumpkin, the changes
due to cross pollination will show up not this year (when the
cross-pollination occurs) but in the children of the pumpkin
that was cross pollinated. Since there are other squash in the
the c. maxima family to which the Atlantic Giant belows, growers
often hand-pollinate their pumpkins if they want to have pure seed
to grow in subsequent years. But just growing gourds in proximity
to pumpkins won't change the appearance of the fruit in the year
you grow them together. I grew both the knobby gourds and the
hard shelled ones this year in addition to four kinds of pumpkins
including Atlangic Giants and they all turned out fine.
Shaun
--
"The rapid development toward the political / environmental
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at terminating the transnational corporations are entitled to call
themselves progressive." -- Anonymous
polaris@wolfenet.com ++ PGP email welcome
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