Cucurbita pepo “Koshare”
Koshare ornamental gourd, Koshare spoon gourd, Koshare Spoon gourd: a small purely decorative gourd, whose fruits each bear two sharply separated colors — a swollen BRIGHT ORANGE base and a green neck so dark it appears black. Its small spoon or curved-neck bottle shape makes it one of the most recognizable ornamental gourds, and its hard skin allows it to last for months without changing.
Characteristics:
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Clearly bicolored: swollen bright orange base, narrow curved neck in very dark green, almost black, often finely striped. The boundary between the two colors is sharp.
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Small fruits: 8 to 12 cm, shaped like a spoon or small bottle, with hard, smooth skin.
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Very productive: a single vine can produce fifteen to twenty fruits.
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Excellent storage: when dried and kept in a dry place, it retains its color and shape for months, sometimes more than a year.
Warning — please read:
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This ornamental gourd is not edible. Like all decorative gourds, it contains cucurbitacins, very bitter and toxic substances that cause nausea, vomiting, and severe digestive problems. It is for looking at, not cooking.
- A simple and absolute rule, also applicable to edible squash: if it tastes bitter, spit it out and discard the entire fruit. Bitterness is the signal of cucurbitacins.
- Keep the fruits out of reach of young children, who may be attracted by their bright colors.
Sowing advice:
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Exposure: full sun and warmth.
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Soil: deep, loose, moist, and rich — a generous addition of mature compost makes all the difference. However, it is sensitive to standing water around the crown.
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Method: sow in pots under cover from April at 20-25 °C, 2-3 cm deep, placing the seed on its edge to prevent it from rotting. Germination in 5 to 10 days. Transplant after the last frosts. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Space plants 1 to 1.50 m apart: the stems spread a long way. Mulch thickly to retain moisture and keep the fruits clean.
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It is best grown vertically: on a wire mesh, arch, or hoops, its tendrils will cling on by themselves. The lightweight fruits then hang freely and develop a more even color, without a pale side caused by contact with the ground.
Care advice:
- Water regularly at the base, without wetting the foliage: powdery mildew quickly takes hold on cucurbits.
- There is no need to limit the number of fruits, unlike with large pumpkins: here, the more there are, the better.
Harvesting advice:
- Harvest before the first frosts, when the stem has become hard and corky and your fingernail no longer marks the skin. Cut with pruning shears, leaving 3 to 5 cm of stem: without it, the fruit rots from the top.
- Allow the fruits to dry for about ten days in a dry, well-ventilated place, then store them somewhere dry. A dry cloth is enough to remove dust; avoid varnishing them, as this prevents the skin from breathing.
Beneficial combinations:
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its large yellow-orange flowers, which open early in the morning, provide a very abundant source of pollen for bees and bumblebees in midsummer.
- Its spreading foliage covers the soil, protects it from drying out, and shelters beneficial microfauna.
Uses:
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For decorative use only: autumn arrangements and wreaths, bowls, garlands, festive tables, Halloween. It can also be used as ground cover or as an annual climber to quickly dress up a fence or arch.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Open a fully ripe, perfectly hard fruit and remove the seeds — flat, oval, cream-white, with a clearly defined edge — then rinse and dry them flat for several days. Caution: Cucurbita pepo varieties cross very easily with one another (zucchini, pattypan squash, spaghetti squash, and other ornamental gourds). Isolate your seed plant; otherwise, the offspring may produce bitter and unpredictable fruits. See how to save your seeds.
Commitment to Quality: at SemiSauvage - Permaculture, we grow and select our seeds with respect for all living things as our guiding principle. Based near the Auvergne Volcanoes, we choose open-pollinated, non-hybrid varieties, tested for their germination rate, carefully sorted and packaged, with no chemical treatment. Our belief: to give gardeners back the ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
Two bold colors on a single small fruit: the ornamental gourd that makes the entire autumn table.
