We have a lot of chili peppers in our state, and you might try something I have done to keep the cotton tails from eating my gourd leaves:

Mix some ground chili peppers (get a bag from the spice ailse of the grocery store) with mineral oil (from the pharmacist counter or WalMart). Don't worry about the portions -- just make it so you can squirt it out of a Windex bottle.

Squirt it all over the underside of the leaves (they'll look really ugly, so that's why you don't want to spray the tops.) Try NOT to spray the gourds -- it may stain them red. Reapply in a week or two, depending upon rain.

Just spray around the vines that are on the outside of the patch, and the little buggers will go running off with hot snouts!

I've found this thread too late in the season to offer advice for *this* year. But here's something you can do next year. Purchase a Havahart trap. There are all different sizes; get one listed for ground hogs. Begin setting it out (with appropriate bait) in late winter/early spring. Hopefully, you'll catch them and avoid having the same worries next summer and fall.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ground Hogs