Hi John, I think you will find that growers say it is possible to drill holes to assist with drying. There also seems to be some concern that drilling holes increases the likelihood that the gourds may rot. I typically tough it out without hole drilling and find that, even though it is a slow process, I rarely lose any gourds over the winter. It is hard to successfully 'hurry drying', and so I'd encourage you to experiment to see what works better for your climate and drying conditions. J

HI, John, do not drill any holes before completely dries up... check this web.http://www.ehow.com/how_3886_dry-gourds.html

UPDATE/FYI: I had already drilled 1 inch holes in each of 5 birdhouse gourds before I sent in this question.
I dried them on my office counter with a small fan blowing on then 24 hours a day.
Everyone of the gourds dried perfectly.
John Gray

Well, there you go, John! The experimental method is alive and well and I am glad you had such good results. I suspect that the fan was a great help in drying the gourds so quickly. So now, happy painting. J

I grew gourds this year for the first time. I drilled my hole also to help with the drying time, and they have done very well. I think that whatever works for you is the best thing to do. I read so much info on "how to" that I got confused. Just scrape the inside every so often and they dry even faster.

I've been drilling holes in my gourds for several years now and have yet to have one rot. For gourds that I'm going to use as vases, bowls, etc., I drill 4 or 5 1/8" holes in the bottom. This starts the inside to decompose and the juice starts to run out. When it is finally done, and this depends on the size of the gourd, the seeds and what is left of the pulp usually settles on the bottom and is quite easy to clean out when you open the gourd. Usually, there is little if any mold inside. This year I tried a different method on a large (in excess of 20") apache gourd that I'm going to use as a birdhouse. I cut a 1" hole in the side and put the gourd in a bucket of water. IN a few days the pulp started oozing from the hole. After about a week, I turned it upside down so that the water could get into the neck and the pulp in there is now oozing out. When it is done, I will have a nice cleaned out gourd with little physical work involved and no mold to contend with. My experience with drilling and/or cutting holes in green holes seems to suggest that the stories that this will cause gourds to rot is just another urban legend. Gene/pa

This was our first year to try gourds. We decided to try just leaving them on the plants with most of them, our area of indiana had a very hard early freeze and i sispect this is why we had a very high rot loss rate. i drilled a small hole in the bottom of a few dragon gourds, they are the only dragon gourds that didnt rot. tried the same with a few bottle gourds and they dried faster and none with holes drilled rotted, while about 30% of those left on the vines untillthey started to fall rotted