I want to plant several different varities of gords. Do they cross pollinate each other, or can I plant several together and be ok? Thanks, Ronya Hammonds

-- Ronya Hammonds (surenuffbusted@juno.com), March 21, 2001

Answers

YES! They will cross pollinate, but you'll get some true fruit too. We made the mistake of planting gourds in the row next to summer squash in our market garden a few years ago. We ended up with the weirdest squash I've ever seen - orange zucchini with green warts, yellow crooknecks with orange warts etc. Even some of the normal looking summer squash had skins so hard you couldn't cut them with a kitchen knife.

-- David C (fleece@eritter.net), March 21, 2001.

Yes,gourds will cross.Most gourd pollination is done,by moths,at night.Real gourds will not cross with squash or any other vegetable.What crossed for David,mentioned in the above post, were probably those little ornamental "gourds".Those are really squash.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), March 21, 2001.

Last year we planted cucumbers next to pumkins. The pumkins turned out fine, but the cukes were orange, bumpy, bloated looking things!

-- Elizabeth (Lividia66@aol.com), March 22, 2001.

You are correct, JT,they were ornamental gourds. Forgot to mention that the winter squash were unaffected (Spaghetti, Butternut, Delicata, Acorn)

-- David C (fleece@eritter.net), March 22, 2001.