Here you go, my weird gourds. I bought some like this last year when in Ohio around Halloween and kept some seed and sure enough they are wacky.
Wacky Gourds and Pumpkins
Those are winged gourds. If I remember right, they were introduced by Rupp Seeds.
Bernie
Interesting, like I said went to see the grandbaby last year and picked them up for the season and voila!
Those are gorgeous!
I did not do any gourds this year. I still have a stash of previous years birdhouse gourds to play with.
I did do the luffa thing....and I have one entrant to the Great Pumpkin Contest...It is a volunteer seed that must have been in the chicken coop scrapings that I tossed in the garden this spring... its a beauty.. but it is drying down now.
If you look at the pic it is almost 32 plus some odd feet long from its widest point on the vines! It took over my garden, climbed my sweet autum joys and came through the fence towards our parking area....
Care to guess how many pumkins this baby will have? They are basket ball size or their abouts!
Take about increasing the mynahs!!!
OK, should we leave the GREAT PUMKIN CONTEST of '09 here on this link or start a complete newbie?
I will link it if some one says go!
Wow, that is gone wild there BB - why not just do the link, looks like you already got it going there.
We can leave this one for the gourd enthusiasts!
okie dokie!!!
Soz whatcha gonna do with those wild looking gourds you got there?
I think I am gonna try to drill holes on a few of the birdhouse gourds I have for birds and then try to paint them.
YOurs would look just waay cool if they were dried! Or put in baskets with a slew of other odd size and weirds!
Back with the NEW like in a short!
new link to the GREAT PUMPKIN CONTEST 2009!
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/pf.php
I will use them for decoration for the next weeks and then harvest the seed for more next year. We have a couple gourd birdhouses at the cabin. The gourds were given to me during a DG round up that we hosted up there in the mountains. We drilled holes, cleaned and painted and although that was 4 or so years ago, they are still being used by the local feathered friends. The paint has worn a bit but they are still up in the pear and apple tree and provide a home for them every season.
Well, do show us! I think this is gonna be a pretty neato thread for fall decor!
I'll try to remember to take a pic of them this weekend while up at the cabin.
Cant wait to see them.
Here is one of my unclean previous season gourds...its "skin" is peeling and it needs a scrubbing! But should still make for a fine nest!
Oh my yes BB, that will be great, even looks large enough for a loft apartment upstairs !
I have a pile of those yet. Most are good size like that one! I do have some smaller gourds too. If I ever get the time, I had hoped to paint them. They are dry too.
I love those wingy things of yours! I think thats the first time I have seen those! I wonder how those will dry?
The ones from last year that I didn't harvest seed from just eventually turned color to greyish and were paper thin so I pitched them as the seeds had gotten moldy inside. The ones from which I took seed got pitched. I wonder if I keep one this year and just let it dry rot if it would start new plants in the spring just by planting the gourd itself?
Well, what I do is just put the gourds someplace and let them totally dry. Usually we let them air dry. Dont have too much trouble with mice with the gourds like the sunflower heads, but when they get dry, they we cardboard box them for storage until ready to use.
Yes, they get moldy on the outside and the seeds inside get dried and sometimes mold, but I let them dry until the following season. Let them get hard then crack or drill them open to gather the seeds. I have not had trouble raising "moldy" seed!
The shell of the gourds can be washed like that birhouse gourd above.. The birdhouse gourds are neat as they can take on a haiku look to them and if varnished almost look as if they are a hauiku ceramic! They are great to paint, especially if you have a talent to be artistic. I am a paint by number kind of artist myseeeelf.. you know the tyupe, solid colors work well! LOL! As for those with cute and beautiful scenery on them.. I gotta hire a Van Gogh.
Yes, all gourds loose their bright color when dry.
Im a betting though if you just chucked a few in a particular place on your compost pile, next spring you will have volunteers that you could transplant. I love having a seperate manure/compost/dirt pile that you can do just that type of thing! Chuck the seeds of stuff and see what comes later! Then also have a pile that is strickly fertilizer.
We always had volunteer gourds when we raised a lot of them.
Everybody decided to get rich quick on gourds & pumpkins, so we quit growing them.
Make more money on "edible" veggies.
Bernie
LOL! Get rich qwick huh!? I always ended up giving mine to the food pantries! We do that plant the extra row thing when we can...
When we had hard times, they helped us so fair is fair! So has anyone gottne arty craftsy yet??
Yes, it happens with anything easy to grow.
But it's all about market. No matter what the price, if market is flooded sales drop fast.
Im in a pretty depressed area. I used to do the farmers market thing and got tired of paying the lot fee and half the load home. Seems we spent more time and money than it was worth back then. I dont mind gardening and planting extra. Usually something good comes of it in another way. Someone helps doing something and so it goes.
Darn I wish now I hadn't pitched those moldy ones. Thanks for your instructions, now I know better. We aren't going to the cabin this weekend, had a change of plans so it will be another week till we get up there and I get a pic of the gourd houses. By then it should be implanted in my brain enough that I don't forget the photo lol!
Until you have a BBbblonde mommmment! LOL!
I best scrubbing that old gourd!
Now I have wacky gourds growing in the pine trees, can you see them?
They are climbing everywhere, guess I need to get the ladder out to harvest them?
And I have a wacky albino gourd!
AWWWESOME! Cant wait to see the "finished" product from those climbers!
Here is a birdhouse gourd like we were talkin about BB
Nice!!!
It used to be bright red but has really weathered, same as me lol!
And yet more wacky gourds with zinnias and pieris and grasses
Well, thats pretty!
I have a birdhourse gourd that I was gonna paint in a 70's style. So far just got the design on it.. need to find it and finish it one day!
Now aren't you afraid that might be too much for the birds, I imagine some psychedelic theme that will make the birds crazy ^_^
I found this gourd at a market stand somewhere in Illinois.
I will save seeds & hope for a big crop next year.
Bernie
Yikes! That is phscotic Bernie! Derned think looks like a snake!
I will have to take a pic of my 70's gourd
when I get a chance....I just dont have time to paint it...but it is partially drawn and well, mayne it will drawn in a cuckoo!
They had about a dozen of them hanging there. Looked like rattlers.
We had plain green one year. They got to big.
We had a huge birhouse gourd crop a few years back and I still have some in storage. Slowly they are going to new homes, but jeez, what the heck do you do with 200 some odd biguns that we were not the only ones taking them to a farmers market....I have resorted to ebay!
Heres the 70's one....peace out man!
Eweee! nasty pic.... must be the fog man, its the fog.. yeah.. the fog man... LOL! (stupid camera!!! LOL! I gotta quit playing with the effects!)
Cant ya just hear that tune, um what was it now.. oh yeah, Nights in white satin... BREATHE DEEP!
yipes
Your so right, only crazy birds would want in there.... look, theres one now.. staright out of Alferd Hitchcocks .. the Birds! LOL!
Yikes Bernie, that is whacky. I'll have to try to remember to get you some of my seed this year.
BB, now that is a 70's house if I ever saw one, any bird would be proud to call that home.
just need to paint it all physcodelic colors!! LOL!
Kodakchrome!! LOL!
This message was edited Sep 23, 2009 6:34 AM
Now that will spice it up!
Soz hows it hanging with the gourds here? Got anything new?