Bottle gourd – Vegetable garden

Bottle gourd is an essential cucurbit vegetable . The container gourd is an incredible, yearly, running or climbing vine with huge leaves and a rich appearance. It develops quick and may start to bloom just 2 months in the wake of seeding. The vine is extended and moves by method for rings along the stem. The foliage is secured with delicate hairs and has a foul musky scent when smashed.

The leaves of the bottle gourd are up to 15 inches wide, circular in overall shape, with smooth margins, a few broad lobes, or with undulate margins. Leaves have a velvety texture because of the fine hairs, especially on the undersurface. The bottle gourd flowers are borne singly on the axils of the leaves, the males on long peduncles and the females on short peduncles.The flowers are white and attractive, up to 4 inches in diameter, with
spreading petals. The ovary is inferior and in the shape of the fruit. Otherwise, the male and female flowers are similar in appearance. The anthers are borne on short filaments grouped at the center of the flower.The stigmas are short, thickened, and branched. The brownish seeds are numerous in a whitish green pulp. Each seed is somewhat rectangular in shape with grooved notches near the attached end.

Scientific name: Langenaria siceraria
Common names: calabash, bottle gourd,or white-flowered gourd
Family: Cucurbitacae
Nutritional value: Vitamin A and Vitamin B
Medicinal value: Laxative, juice used for the diabetic patient

How to maintain bottle gourd:
Soil and climate:
Slightly wet to semi-dry ecological condition is suitable Night and day temperature of 18-22c and 30-35c- 20c-30c is good for seed germination

Soil requirement: 
Well‐drained loamy soils are ideally suited though it can be grown on a wide variety of soils. pH less than 5.5 or saline and alkaline. Soil shouldn’t much acidic.

Season and months:
January‐March and September‐ October are the ideal seasons. For the rainfed crop, sowing can be started after the receipt of first few showers during May‐June .

Watering:
Soaker hoses let you water the roots and not the leaves, which will mean you will use less water and reduce the risk of some diseases, such as powdery mildew. Lay the soaker hoses when you are planting and mulching b/c doing so later will be difficult once the plants send out their runners and leaves. Flag the end of each soaker hose that needs to be hooked up to your household hose, for no matter how obvious the location is at the beginning of the season, it will be obscured by thousands of leaves before long.

Fertilizer:
Fertilizer management  Organic fertilizers‐ 20 ton well rotten FYM or compost should incorporated at the time of land preparation

Diseases
Downy mildew,It is severe during rainy season. This can be checked by spraying mancozeb 50 gm in 15 litre of water(waiting period ofmancozeb is three days).Powdery mildew, Can be controlle d by spraying combination of Mancozeb and carbendazim 35 gm per 15 litres of water.