Lagenaria siceraria
Bottle gourd, calabash, pilgrim’s flask: few cultivated plants have such an ancient history. The calabash is one of the very first plants domesticated by humanity, more than 10,000 years ago, and its hollowed-out, dried fruits have served as containers, musical instruments, or ritual objects on almost every continent.
Characteristics:
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Vigorous annual climber: its stems can exceed 4 metres and cover fences, pergolas, and trellises in a single season.
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Night-blooming flowers: a rare characteristic, its large white flowers open at dusk and fade by morning.
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Decorative fruits: round or bottle-shaped, they are grown for decoration and crafts rather than for cooking.
Precautions:
- As with other cucurbits, a very bitter-tasting fruit may contain high concentrations of natural compounds that irritate the digestive system: never eat a calabash or squash with a bitter taste.
Sowing advice:
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Position: full sun and warmth; it is sensitive to cold and demanding in terms of light.
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Soil: rich, deep, moist, and well-drained. It is a very hungry plant: soil amended with mature compost is a real advantage, and planting it beside a compost heap produces spectacular results.
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Method: sow in pots indoors (at least 20 °C) 3 to 4 weeks before the last frosts. Soaking the seeds in lukewarm water for 12 to 24 hours softens their thick coating and significantly speeds up germination. See how to sow your seeds.
Planting advice:
- Transplant after the last frosts, spacing plants at least 1 metre apart, at the foot of a sturdy support: the ripe fruits are heavy.
Care advice:
- Water regularly and generously throughout the growing season, at the base of the plant and without wetting the foliage. A thick mulch helps keep the soil cool and moist.
Harvesting advice:
- For decorative use, leave the fruits on the plant until the first frosts, then hang them in a dry place for several months: they will naturally empty and harden.
Benefits for biodiversity:
- Its large white flowers, which open at dusk, are pollinated by moths, providing a valuable resource for wildlife that is often overlooked in the garden.
Uses:
- Once dried (4 to 5 months after sowing), the hollowed-out fruits can be used to make containers, decorative objects, or handmade musical instruments.
Harvesting your own seeds:
Let the fruits dry completely until the shell hardens and the seeds rattle inside when the fruit is shaken. Then open it to collect the flat seeds and store them in a thoroughly dry place. Caution: cucurbits cross-pollinate easily, so isolate your seed plants. See saving 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 restore gardeners’ ability to resow, year after year, seeds that truly belong to them.
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