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.

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 ...

Gourds are plentiful in the autumn -- you'll find them at farm stands, garden centers and grocery stores. Don’t toss your gourds at the end of the season, dry them instead. Dried gourds weigh a few ...

(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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...

*Refers to the latest 2 years of stltoday.com stories. Cancel anytime. Q • I had a question about bird house gourds. We raised some in two different places and the gourds formed nicely then rotted ...

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Q • I had a question about bird house gourds. We raised some in two different places and the gourds formed nicely then rotted from the inside out before we could use them. We wondered if we should ...