Cucurbita Leucantia Pepo sorry the pilgrims' gourd

[scruffy1]

In Santiago over on Rua Caldeireria on the way to the market, there is an iron monger shop, sort of a general hardware shop, which also offers gardening essentials including seeds!!! I happily purchased seeds of Spanish beefsteak tomatoes-yumyum, European cucumbers-the great long ones, and…Pilgrim’s gourd seeds! My tomatoes and my cucumbers are doing very well thank you –the gourds don’t seem to enjoy or to be able to adapt to the desert heat and the lack of humidity here in Jerusalem but worse, while they do bloom every evening with beautiful small white flowers -moonflowers after all in several languages including as you will see, Japanese, our local bees, flies, butterflies, moths, lovebugs, and other assorted flying beasties-especially frustrating, while we are especially blessed this year with mosquitoes, midges, gnats, and other man-eating arthropods-none have shown any interest in the flowers of my gourds. There must be a garden nut out there reading this, maybe even a farmer, so my question, may gourds be pollinated by hand, flower to flower and while I can guess how its done, please write with the fine details-I would love to have my own growing in the garden.
Lagenaria siceraria is the Japanese variant -夕顔 - yuugao-used for the same purpose, well almost, supposedly their gourd transforms the taste of mediocre sake into the good stuff, perhaps a useful addition to the pilgrims backpack for those difficult areas we must pass, say those devastating walks around the airport into both Burgos and Santiago!

 

[Freetime]

You can use a camel hair paint brush to pollinate your flowers. It will simulate the bees. Dont use man made fiber brushes as the pollen doesnt stick well.
I live in an apartment with a screened porch. ALL my plants have to be hand pollinated. My wife has talked about buying me a yellow shirt with stripes so I can dress like a bee when I do that. :grin:

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