In Love with Bee's & Ash Gourd

It’s one of the Veggies that love warm weather, It’s also called as white Gourd,Wax Gourd Elavan in Malayalam , Kondol in tagalong and so on .

They are covered with a white chalky wax which deters Pest, and helps the Gourd to get more life.

It’s one of the veggies that is a must in my house in a week, for variety of recipes like the Avial , Olan etc yummy and simple to cook .

In Ayurveda remedies it used to increase appetite, its fresh juice is used to cure kidney stones, the seeds are cooked in milk and taken to increase sperm count and to improve sperm locomotion.

The one that I posted grew from the compost; it just came up without much fuss I would say.

When I saw this one grown up fast, all I did was moved it to another location where it could utilize some support to grow up.

I had some Trellis built for the beans, but Gourd utilized that and also provided some shade for the little beans that were growing in the ground.

From Compost , In Pot 

When I started seeing  some flowers , I added some cows manure , every 15 days – not sure if its correct procedure thou , but that did increase the amount of flowers .

There were days that I always longed to see how the bees pollinated, Google did say that bees could arrive in any place except Antarctica, but didn’t have any hope since the place behind my backyard is vast ,open ground with lots of construction and mud.

But nature always surprises me, I did get to see the bees around the flowers, stood there until they left got a Pic , not clear thou , but they posed for me .

Bee Love

See below male and female flower, just waiting for female to mature .

Male 

Female - yet to bloom

Hoping the process takes place by the bees soon and not waiting for me to hand pollinate.

Waiting continues, learning patience. 

Update as of Nov 19th. -The bees pollinated , But didn't want to take a chance hence hand pollinated the next day as well.Not sure if its right , but below is the outcome .
Its still growing Big , need to give a better support .

Support given - Using the onion bags .

Dec 07 - 2013 Update

Needed the Ash gourd for cooking Molagutal and hence was in a hurry to get it of to our table, guess it could have grown more, but i'm very happy & satisfied .