For the Love of Gourds

If you have ever seen a crafted Gourd, you know how wonderful they are. If you have never seen a crafted Gourd, then you need to, because they are just AWESOME!!!

I first discovered what could be done with a gourd, back in 1990, when a friend and I bought some of those cute little colorful Gourds they sell in the stores. After a couple of months of having these little beauties, they dried out, and the seeds began to rattle around inside. Well we sat down with some paints and painted those little Gourds, and turned them into little rattles.

We were so impressed with our little rattles, that we started searching the library for books on Gourds. We found very few, but were fortunate enough to find one that listed an American Gourd Society, so we contacted them for more info on Gourds. We never expected to learn all they had to share. We discovered that the Gourds we bought at the store were called Cucurbita Gourds, or ornamental Gourds. Then we learned that there was another type of Gourd, the Lagenari Gourd. We also learned that there were many varieties of both.

In the Cucurbita family there are eggs, crown of thorns, spoons, spinners, and that is only a few. In the Lagenari family you have, bottles, maranka, dippers, bushels, bird house, swan, kettle, banana, snake, zulu, apple, pear, and so many others. There are many Gourds from Japan, Indonesia, and many other countries.

In short, there are so many different varieties of Gourds in the world, that you could write a book on them all, and in fact, we are planning to do exactly that. So far my Husband Dan and I have worked together in growing, and crafting thousands of Gourds, as well as writing two booklets, one on cleaning processes, and one on growing and pruning process.

A dear friend of ours did an ID chart for the American Gourd Society back in 1992, and Dan has since updated that chart and added many more Gourds to it. Dan's two page chart appeared in the Winter issue of "The Gourd", a quarterly publication put out by the AGS in 2005. He has since expanded it to a three page chart, and is now looking at expending that to a book, complete with drawings, descriptions, growing time, just about anything that would need to be known about each variety.

We also are considering writing a book that will cover just about everything to do with a Gourd, including all the above mentioned info, as well as experiments we have conducted with growing, and pollination. Cross breeding to get a certain shape. Harvesting before the big freeze sets in verses leaving your Gourds in the patch to winter over, saving seeds, and a section on safe and healthy Gourding. Plus links to lots of Gourd related sites on the web.

There are some really awesome Gourd Artist in this Country. To see some of the wonderful work that gourd artist do with gourds, visit The Gourd Reserve, click on the "Galleries", button and that will take you to a whole host of gourd artist from all over the world!

The things that you can create with a gourd are unlimited. You can make bird houses and feeders, purses, dolls, bowls, dippers, food storage containers, toys, musical instruments, and the list just goes on, and on. You can also do a simple painting on a gourd. You can do a painting on just a section of the gourd, or you can paint a picture around the entire gourd. The posabilities are unlimited!

Have A Gourdgeous Day : )
Gourdaculturist
Pioneering new frontiers in Gourdaculture
The Gourd Reserve