Bottlegourds are a well known crop in my community garden as it got popularised when its fruits were harvested and given to my constituency’s Advisor and Member of Parliament, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua.
See this post made in Oct 07: http://tropicalgardener.wordpress.com/2007/10/04/my-report-card-for-the-community-garden/
The variety I grew in there was the one that produce long tubular fruits. The fruits can actually be bought from the local wet markets here. The one I grew is a F1 hybrid which I bought the seeds from Known You Seeds. The description of the hybrid that was published in the company’s catalogue, is given below:
“Hybrid Name – Long Life
This hybrid variety is early, vigorous, and tolerant to powdery mildew. Abundant fruit-setting is characterized by predomi-nantly female flowers. Fruits are 30-35 cm long, weighing about 750-900 g, and can be harvested in 50-60 days from seedling. Light to white-green skin with tender flesh is optimal for planting year-round in Southern Taiwan, Mainland China and Southeast Asia as well.”
The plant is a durable crop in the sense that the vines keep on growing and never seem to die off even after months after the seeds are sown. They are relatively disease resistant and I never encountered downy mildew with them. The plants are quite rampant and heavy, especially so when they are bearing fruits. Hence a sturdy trellis need to be built.
The bottlegourd, scientifically known as Lagenaria siceraria, it is one of those odd ones out because it bears flowers that are white in colour and they bloom at night. Unlike those of the pumpkin, cucumber, rockmelon, etc, which bear flowers that are yellow and open in the day.
Because my garden lack the pollinators, e.g. moths, for bottlegourd flowers, I need to hand-pollinate them, using the method I described in one of the earlier posts using cucumber flowers as an example. Often, I get night flying beetles eating up the petals of the flowers!
A fruit that is still green which is ready for harvest for consumption. It can be left on the vine to mature and dry out where it can then be taken off and made into a water holding receptacle.
I was also quite surprised on one occasion that the neighourhood estate cleaners asked for the leaves of the bottlegourd plant, which I normally generously prune off to give it to them. I was told in their native country, that is India and Bangladesh, the young shoots and leaves are actually harvested and cooked then eaten like a leafy vegetable.
Previously, I did not know that the foliage of this vine can actually be eaten although I am not surprised because there are quite a few cucurbit vines whose foliage are eaten in the same way. The foliage of the bottlegourd emits a characteristic smell though and it is not exactly pleasant to everyone. But I think it dissipitates when heat is applied to the foliage whilst being cooked.
