How to Plant Gourds This Spring

Musicians Can Sow Seeds and Harvest Musical Instruments

Feb 15, 2009

From soaking gourd seeds to setting up a garden and planting young vines, here's what musicians need to know to get the seeds for their musical instruments in the ground.

Arthur Stephens, founder of the Richmond Indigenous Gourd Orchestra has a catchy motto, “Plant a seed, grow an orchestra.” In this article, he shares his best tips for everything entailed in the planting part.

Planting Gourd Seeds

Those musicians who feel their talent lies outside the scope of gardening can breathe a sigh of relief. Gourds are one of those rare plants that grow without pampering from green thumbs. Simply popping a few seeds into the ground is likely to yield great results. But for those who enjoy gardening tips and tricks, Arthur details the methods that produce bumper crops of drums, shakers, horns, and guitars in his garden year after year.

“In the beginning,” Arthur explains, “you take the seeds and soak them at least overnight. Some people soak them a couple days until the seed actually sprouts. You do this indoors where it’s warm. They like around eighty degrees for sprouting.”

To soak the seeds, gardeners can layer paper towels over a cookie sheet and space the groups of seeds out to keep different varieties separate. Musicians may want to jot out a quick map so they remember which seeds are which when it’s time to plant.

Gourd growers can cover their seeds with another layer of paper towels and then gently water the tray. The towels should never be allowed to dry out.

To give the plants a head start, some gardeners prefer to let their seeds sprout before they plant them. “I've experimented with soaking the seeds for up to a week and typically will put a heating pad underneath to speed things up,” says Arthur. “I use a gardening heating pad that is waterproof and stays at 80 degrees. After soaking, ot them up in peat pots or styrofoam cups with holes punched in the bottom for drainage. Keep them warm and moist. Once you see sprouts emerge from the soil then place them in a well lit area. You can place grow lights a few inches over them if you have the space. You will then have good size plants to transplant to your garden in about 4 or 5 weeks.”

Choosing a Garden Site for Gourds

When scoping out a garden patch for gourds, Arthur advises, “Make sure you have a place with as much sun as possible. A nice, kind of loamy soil is great.”

Gourd vines need a lot of space. They will either climb up or sprawl out across the ground reaching lengths of thirty to fifty feet. Gourd vines love chain link fences or improvised chicken wire trellises.

“A lot of people grow their gourds on trellises just to get a straight and symmetrical looking gourd,” says Arthur. “If you grow them up on a trellis, you may have to watch how big they get. Often people use something stretchy like old panty hose to make a little net to support the weight. If you grow them on the ground, they will be a little lopsided or have a flat spot, but for the larger ones like bushel baskets, you don’t really have much choice. Most people put something like straw or plastic underneath so the gourds aren’t touching the dirt. That keeps insects and slugs from chewing on the skins.”

When fear of frost is passed, gardeners can take their seeds to the garden and put them in the soil points down. “Once the root system gets going,” predicts Arthur, “the vines will start sprouting and by June you’ll see growth by the foot each day. You can actually sit there and watch the tendrils move during the heat of the day. It’s really a fun plant. The vines have massive leaves and can get up to fifty feet or longer. If you don’t watch out, they’ll grow over you’re neighbor’s fence and house, but they’re easy to corral."

Next, musicians and gardeners may want to read tips for growing healthy gourds through the summer as well as harvesting and drying their gourds in the fall. They may also be interested to check out the music of the Richmond Indigenous Gourd Orchestra and information about making gourd musical instruments featured in Arthur Stephens’ group.

The copyright of the article How to Plant Gourds This Spring in Musical Instruments is owned by Marcy Paulson. Permission to republish How to Plant Gourds This Spring in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.