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Lagenaria "Birdhouse bottle" (Calebass)
Snake Gourd (Indian Cucumber, Calabash, Calebass) - Lagenaria siceraria.
What makes it so attractive?
First of all, its unpretentiousness — this "cucumber" gets along perfectly with other plants:
• Planted under an apple tree, it climbs to its very top;
• By a fence, it entwines it with luxurious greenery and charms with large, pale cream flowers.
Flowers usually open towards evening and droop by morning. If grown indoors, it quickly climbs to the top of the window, creating a translucent emerald curtain.
Culinary use:
The fruits of the Indian cucumber have excellent taste and dietary qualities. While young (25-30 cm long), they are eaten like ordinary cucumbers. Mature fruits can reach 2 meters in length and weigh 7-10 kg!
Peeled fruits are used to make salads with vinegar, fried in oil (preferably olive oil) like zucchini, made into caviar, sauces, and even cooked as porridge with milk.
Growth features:
The fruit grows incredibly fast — 8-10 cm per day. Vegetation continues until late autumn (until the first frosts). The plant is heat-loving, prefers loose, fertilized soil.
What makes it so attractive?
First of all, its unpretentiousness — this "cucumber" gets along perfectly with other plants:
• Planted under an apple tree, it climbs to its very top;
• By a fence, it entwines it with luxurious greenery and charms with large, pale cream flowers.
Flowers usually open towards evening and droop by morning. If grown indoors, it quickly climbs to the top of the window, creating a translucent emerald curtain.
Culinary use:
The fruits of the Indian cucumber have excellent taste and dietary qualities. While young (25-30 cm long), they are eaten like ordinary cucumbers. Mature fruits can reach 2 meters in length and weigh 7-10 kg!
Peeled fruits are used to make salads with vinegar, fried in oil (preferably olive oil) like zucchini, made into caviar, sauces, and even cooked as porridge with milk.
Growth features:
The fruit grows incredibly fast — 8-10 cm per day. Vegetation continues until late autumn (until the first frosts). The plant is heat-loving, prefers loose, fertilized soil.
Growing Methods
1. INDOORS (and public spaces):
Ideal for those without a garden. Can be grown in halls, corridors, on loggias.
Container: Tub or box with a volume of 10-15 liters with a drainage hole.
Soil: A mixture of fertile soil (2 parts) and rotted manure (1 part). Add 1-2 cups of ash or 4-5 tbsp of chalk.
Care: Place by the brightest window. Be sure to regulate growth: pinch the tops of the central stem and side shoots. Use cords lowered from the cornice for support.
2. IN THE GREENHOUSE AND ON THE BALCONY:
Planting: Holes 40 cm deep, 1 m apart. In the hole: 2 handfuls of humus + 1 tsp of ash. Bury up to the cotyledons.
Support: Tie the vines to a wire at a height of 2-3 m.
Flowering: Male flowers appear first, followed by female ones a week later. Lagenaria blooms in the evening.
Feeding: Mineral fertilizers are preferred (e.g., potassium magnesium: 50-60 g per bucket of water). Organics cause excessive leaf growth at the expense of fruit.
Formation: Leave 2-3 fruits for full maturation, eat the rest young. Remove excess side shoots (leave no more than 5), pinch the top.
Regeneration myth: There is an opinion that you can cut off part of a growing fruit and it will continue to grow. Practice shows that the cut site often rots, so it is better to cut the fruit whole.
HARVESTING AND USE:
• For food: Cut young fruits 5-7 cm thick.
• For seeds and crafts: Leave fruits until frost. Then cut with a "tail" and dry indoors (16-20°C) until November, when the seeds inside start to rattle.
• Crafts: Woody fruits are used to make vases, jugs, musical instruments. Lagenaria dishes do not leak water and are very practical.
Bot. syn.: Cucumis bicirrha Forster ex Guillemin, Cucumis lagenarius Dumort., nom. nud., Cucumis mairei H.Lev., Cucurbita lagenaria L., Cucurbita leucantha Duchesne, Cucurbita longa hort., Cucurbita siceraria Molina, Lagenaria lagenaria (L.) Cockerell, nom. inval., Lagenaria leucantha Rusby, Lagenaria vulgaris Ser.
How to grow lagenaria?
Lagenaria seedlings are watered only with warm, settled water when the topsoil dries up. Seedlings do not need frequent and plentiful watering.
If seedlings develop too slowly, you can feed with a complex mineral fertilizer by dissolving 4 g of the powder in 1 liter of water.
However, more than two dressings (with an interval of 10 days) should not be given. A few days before planting, the seedlings are hardened by moving the pots to the loggia.
First for a few hours, then for the whole day and at night. After hardening, plants tolerate transplantation more easily and take root faster in a new place.
* The first true leaves of lagenaria are very different from those typical for it.
This should not confuse you, because as the seedling grows, they die off, and leafy side shoots develop from the sinuses.
* Due to the fact that lagenaria flowers open in the evening, when the bees are not very active, it is advisable to help the plant to pollinate.
To do this, pollen from two or three male flowers must be transferred with a brush to a female flower.
* To increase the yield of lagenaria, it is necessary to stimulate the formation of female flowers. This is achieved by pinching the side shoots.
