My first time with Gourds - Drying - Photos

Ok, I try to do something new every year on the farm. This year it was gourds. We want to make different things, to try and sell them. They would sell good in this area. Well, I picked them yesterday. I think they turned out so neat, they are dipper gourds. I got a few that will be dippers, bowls, bird houses.

 

Well, being it was my first time with gourds, I called a friends to see now to dry them. She said I could put them in the hay barn, on the hay, and turn them daily. I really don't have time for that. So I hit the Internet looking for how to dry.

I found that most people tied a string around the top stem and hang from the porch. I thought that easy, no turning. So I started getting them ready to put out. Tommy came in and said," Dear they will not stay on that string, they will fall off as them dry and the stem gets smaller." I said, "But that's how they are doing it on the Internet." And I got them all hung on the porch.

Right as I put the last one up, I heard a crash on the front porch. I went to see, one of my best looking gourds on the ground busted. As I was going in the house , an other one fell. So I took them all down and put them back in the house.

The ones that broke.

I told Tommy he was right.And this is his, " I told you",smile.

Boy,I just thought he was hard headed.

So Tommy made a little sling like thing for the gourds to hang in safely. But it would have taken us hours to make a sling for each one. Here on the farm, there never seems to be enough time for everything. So I put on my ," What do I have that I can use to hang them safely with". After looking at Tommy's homemade sling, I remembered I had a lot of the mesh potatoes sacks. ( as Tommy says I never throw away any thing). So I ran and got one to see if it would work. IT DID! So I got them all hung on the porch, and no turning daily. Thank you Lord. 

 

 

The next step is to let them dry 3-4 weeks, they will get a black type mold on them, that is washed off and they are dried and get hung back up to finish drying.

I will post as I do them. Have a great day. Becky

Technorati Tags: gourds,creativity,ideas,making do,self sufficiency

Comments:

1. Oh that internet eh? I also do my share of research of various things on this wide world web…and I too have experienced hit & misses. It reminded me how I learned to be so “smart” on things & had answers. When I failed at something I learned and then I had the answer. While I am thinking back, I figured out that my mom really didn’t have eyes in the back of her head and that she really didn’t know what I had been up too. Her “eyes” in the back of her head was from her own experiences and it was the neighbor you told on me! So I kept up the tradition (as a mom) and kept the eyes in the back of “my” head and a nosy neighbor around. It worked for awhile till my kids figured it out…now they are keeping up the tradition. I don’t know why I said all this…probably cause my mom’s b’day was on the 25th…and was just thinking back to those years!
   Blessings from Oregon. Comment by Sage White Owl | September 28, 2008 | 

2. Do you paint? They sell for a lot here at festivals. A lot of people paint all sorts of things on them. I can’t wait to see what you create. Comment by ~Country Lady~ | September 28, 2008 |

3. Sage White Owl, Nice to hear from you again. How are things up your way? --Country Lady, Not really, but I’m willing to try. I am looking forward to playing around with them. Thanks for stopping in. Becky  Comment by jordansfarm | September 29, 2008 |