28
COUNTRY GARDENS // FA LL 2019
the biggest seller at gourd festivals throughout the
Southeast, Dickie says, but the demand for certain
sizes and shapes is hard to predict. “One time you
might sell a big old basket of cannonballs, maybe
300 or 400, and the next time you sell 30,” he says.
Walking through the fields at dawn, Dickie points
out bottle gourds hidden among the big leaves. He
shows off the ridges on dinosaur gourds and stops
to appreciate a patch of apple gourds as green as
Granny Smiths. In his big boots, he steps nimbly
between the wide rows to cut a swan gourd from a
vine. Like other gourds, swan gourds are tan when
they’re cleaned and dry, but during the growing
season, their speckled skin sets them apart. All
around Dickie, hundreds of swan gourds, a whole
flock, glow in the morning light. “This is the one,”
he says, his absolute favorite. But then he sets off
down the field again. “Check this one out,” he
says, parting the leaves to reveal a basketball gourd,
perfectly round—perfect in every way.ABOVE LEFT Most hard-shell gourd vines have white flowers that open at night, but Tennessee spinner gourds produce
yellow flowers that open in the daytime. ABOVE MIDDLE A warty gourd grows in the field. Its stripes will disappear and
its warts become more pronounced as it dries. ABOVE RIGHT Dickie Martin’s big boots dwarf a tiny Tennessee spinner.
One plant may produce 100 or more of these little gourds. BELOW Gourd seeds get planted in rows 10 feet apart, but
when the vines mature, you can barely see the row edges. The large gourds in the foreground are bottle gourds.