TRENTON - Doug Williams has enjoyed watching things grow since he was a small boy.

Raised locally on a farm, he had plenty of experience.

"Back then, you had to have gardens or you'd starve to death," he said.
Today, he grows plums, apples, blackberries, blueberries and figs on his property on Highway 25 in Trenton.

Since 1990, he has owned the Pine House Flea Market where he sells fruits and vegetables including peaches (in season), watermelons, cantaloupes, preserves, cement lawn fixtures and more recently, gourds.

"I got the idea a few years ago," he said. "I'd seen a lot of them at craft shows and I figured they'd sell good. I didn't know if they'd grow good here or not, but a fellow at Ridge Spring had them and I thought I'd give them a try. I didn't realize that many people buy gourds."

Williams uses some of the same seed every year to replant.

"I get the seed from the ones I cut and I either rent the land or people allow me to plant there," he said. "They grow on a vine like watermelons. One vine might have 10 to 12 gourds. You plant them in an open field and they grow best in a field that hasn't been worked in four or five years."

Related to the squash, pumpkin and cucumber, the gourd bears fruit with a hard rind.

He said they require very little attention and are 90 percent water.

"I plant in late March or early April and by the end of August, they are made," he said.

But he has to leave them in the field to dry.

"They take a long time to dry," he said. "They are green and they change to brown when they are dry."

Williams puts as many as he can under a shed and in a cage when they are dry and sells them. He makes birdhouses out of some.

"People put them up for Purple Martins," he said. "They (the birds) migrate from Brazil. They come in February and leave in late July. They are known for keeping mosquitoes away. I've been told they can eat up to 10,000 mosquitoes a day."

He keeps the birdhouses on an old power line wire with a wench on the end. He lets the wire up and down to clean out the birdhouses.

"It's a pretty good job fixing a birdhouse," he said. "You have to clean them with warm water and a steel wool pad. Pulp and seed come out of them. You then dry them good and paint them. You cut a 2 inch hole for the Martins to go in."

He said one woman from Prosperity buys around 300 to 400 gourds at one time every year.

"She's an artist and she uses them to make crafts and resells them. She paints scenes on them. They grow in different sizes and some are shaped like snowmen. They make plastic gourds," he said. "But the birds don't like the plastic ones."

He said when he was a little boy, he saw people use dipper gourds to drink water from springs in the woods.

"You have to have something for them to hang on that goes down in the ground to grow dipper gourds," he said.

The Gourd Man, as he has become known as, planted 15 acres of gourds last year but said he doesn't plan to plant any this year.

"I have enough for awhile," he said.

Williams said he does a pretty good business with the gourds.

"It''s not a get-rich-quick scheme or anything," he said. "It's more a hobby that I enjoy, but I make some money off it too."

NOTE: For more pictures of the "Gourd man" Doug Williams and his gourds, visit the Spotted photo section on the front page.