How to Rapid Dry Gourds: Pick Them Today, Craft Them Tomorrow

WARNING: This will not work with every type of lagenaria gourd. This will work primarily on Sennaris, Hyakunari's (some), and a few other small gourds. We have successfully rapid dried egg gourds, too, but only at about a 50-percent success rate, and that is with experience in selecting gourds.

First, you should read my article on green cleaning gourds. It tells you which types of gourds can be green cleaned. Select the best of the best as far as hardness and thickness is concerned in your small gourds, such as Sennaris. Green clean them as instructed in the green-cleaning article.

Once all the skin is removed, set your oven to around 170 degrees, place the green cleaned gourd on the oven rack and leave it for 12 to 24 hours. Most small gourds will dry out by this time.

DO NOT set your oven above, or perhaps even close to 200 degree's. Oven temperature settings are not perfect and can vary by 10-20 degree's, maybe even more. Gourds are 90% water when picked, and that water takes time to leach out through the hardened shell, at temperatures above 170 you begin to risk the potential for the moisture to try to expand and leach out faster than the shell will allow it, and the result would be an explosion in your oven, a ruined gourd, and a real mess to clean up.

We have managed to find a few gourds that could actually be cut, boiled in water for a couple hours, cleaned out with a spoon, then baked in the oven, and curing time from picking to crafting on gourds like this can be as short as 5 hours, however we do not recommend trying this unless it is a gourd you can spare because the failure rate on boiling and drying is much higher than any other method.

If you go to The Gourd Reserve, (http://www.thegourdreserve.com), and look for the Educational link in the navigation bar, and just a few links under that is the Gourd Report Vol 1, we cover in great detail much of our experiments in rapid drying gourds for crafting.

Gourds are an artistic medium. If you would like to learn more about gourds, please visit The Gourd Reserve, with over 800 pages of gourd related information and artwork. You can also find more short articles on gourds and growing gourds here on my AC producer page.