Before the first frost touches your garden with its icy fingers, harvest gourds and prepare them for their use as birdhouses, decorations, sponges, or whatever else is in store for this useful fruit.

Shaped like an oversized apple, these hard-shelled gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) grow six to eight inches tall and four to six inches across. In India, young fruit is added to curries. The skin is ...

Gourds often require 110-120 days to mature. Start the seeds inside about two weeks before the last frost. Keep the gourds on the vine as long as possible. Jennifer Behm often covers them to protect ...

Birdhouse gourds originated in North America hundreds of years ago. Native American Indians such as the Chickasaw tribe are believed to be the first people to use gourds as birdhouses. The Chickasaw ...

“Repurpose, recycle, reuse” is the mantra for today’s decor. You’ll get double the value if you decorate for autumn with organic elements that can later be repurposed, All over America it’s the season ...

When do I harvest my birdhouse gourds and how do I do it? Harvest them when they are full-size, the skin is hardened, and the stem attached to the fruit turns brown. These thick-skinned gourds can ...

(Author's note: When I started writing this column 26 years ago — oh, yes, before the turn of the century — it was only to be a few months in the summer. But seeing that gardening was becoming very ...

If I plant gourds again (talk me out of it, won't you?), maybe I'll want to try something different from the dippers I've already grown. (They are definitely worth growing in a smallish garden — once.