We harvested gourds, sweet potatoes and a few green bell and habanero peppers from our garden this week. The gourds were the star of our harvest. We plan to leave the gourds outside on our deck to dry out so my son can paint them and make them into birdhouses.
We picked all our gourds today even though it is best to pick the gourds later in the season when the stems turn brown. We picked them early because many of them had developed dark green and brown spots. The Home and Garden Center at the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension thought the spots were water soaked spots due to our very wet growing season. They could not identify any fruit pathogen from the photo I sent to them. They recommended we pick the gourds immediately, rub them with a mild bleach solution and let them air dry. Now we have some sparkly clean gourds.
Harvest Totals: gourds 21 pounds and sweet potatoes 4.5 pounds
Our Garden Plot 
Those aren’t spots … they’re freckles!
Make sure they aren’t touching each other! They look really nice. I grew them a couple years ago, but didn’t do the bleach wash. Almost all of them rotted.
Thanks for the advice. I separated them, but unfortunately it looks like several are rotting. Hope one will dry for the birdhouse project.