Some types to try in your garden include the bitter gourd and calabash gourd.

The chekere is a drum used in Caribbean rituals, fashioned from the calabash gourd, hung with colored beads.

Pope Francis holds a traditional calabash gourd used to drink Mate, which was given to him as a present from President Cristina Kirchner yesterday.

Calabash gourds from the south contained the heads of water-vipers and the dried bodies of certain jellyfish.