Gorgeous Gourds
(Page 4 of 5)
April/May 2005
By Barbara Pleasant
Folk Art to Fine Art
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What kind of project should that be? “Gourd craft is very beginner-friendly,” Summit says. “It requires little or no investment in materials because you can start with what you have.” Experienced gourd crafters let each unique gourd inspire them, but beginners should take on easy projects such as simple birdhouses, bowls, cups and vases. Gourds can be decorated by painting, wood burning, carving, staining or simply polishing them up with shoe polish. Numerous books are available to help you develop your gourd-crafting skills, which often borrow methods from the worlds of woodworking, painting, leather craft and basketry.
As your appreciation of gourds deepens, don’t be surprised if they become something of an obsession. Karen Manasco’s specialty is growing superior gourd seeds, and each year she looks forward to what she calls her “gourd pageant,” in which she lines up her best specimens on wood pallets before choosing winners worthy of keeping for seed. At Denny Wainscott’s house, where up to 50 cured, cleaned gourds sit in waiting in his studio and family room, he often wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea that’s perfect for one of the gourds. “I get up right then and there and start drawing on the gourd,” he says. Leah Comerford uses the natural markings on gourds as her creative muse. “It’s similar to seeing images in clouds, except that gourds hold still and allow those images to be drawn out.”
The bottom line? Hard-shell gourds of almost any kind are a mysterious, renewable, artistic resource.
Gourd Sex in the Garden
By July, each of your gourd plants will sport dozens of pretty white blooms. If you don’t plan to save the seeds, or if you’re growing only one type of gourd, let insects take care of pollination. However, if your patch includes an array of shapes and sizes, and you do want to save seeds from your best specimens, you’ll need to practice planned parenthood in your gourd patch. If you don’t, and pollen from a male bottle gourd blossom is carried to a female canteen or apple gourd flower, for example, the seeds inside your accidental hybrid are likely to grow out to produce what gourd grower Karen Manasco calls “bloopers.”
To keep a strain pure, Manasco chooses a few promising-looking female buds (easily spotted because they have tiny gourds at their base) and covers them with cheesecloth secured with a rubber band. As soon as they open, she pollinates them by picking male blossoms from the same strain and “kissing” them into the females, which are then re-covered with cheesecloth for a few more days to keep out pollinating insects. When the blossoms fade, the hand-pollinated gourds can be marked by tying a colorful ribbon to the closest tendril
Gourd Types
Hard-shell gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) make for great crafting, but they need a long, warm growing season to develop mature fruits. In cool climates, only small-bottle or egg-shaped Lagenarias mature fast enough to make a good crop. Colorful ornamental gourds (Cucurbita pepo ovifera) mature in 90 days, and come in a wild assortment of shapes, colors and sizes. Mixed packets of seed often include winged pears, warted dumplings and little striped pumpkins. Wiped with a damp cloth, ornamental gourds make long-lasting table decorations
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