Saturday, March 01, 2008
It's been a really good year for the gourds. My gourd patch produced a bunch of really nice gourds with barely any spoilage. I'm not sure if it was the dry weather, or what. But it has been a really good year and I'm pleased with what I've brought onto the porch to keep out of the weather.
I remembered that some of you really some of the gourd art I had done in the past. The one on the left, I did for an artist in South Carolina. I like best working with gourds I've grown myself because I like the irregularities the mold causes. Most people who grow gourds dip them in bleach to retard that.
I brought a few gourds inside to strip and do some tests with and I'm really pleased. I cut this little test bowl from one of the smaller ones. The walls are over a quarter inch thick and there's no warp at all on the bowl's edge. I'm playing with some dyes and paints to see what I want to do with them. I'll probably do bowls with the smaller ones. The insides are really nice and silvery/velvety. Gourds make a sort of shiny paper inside. Sometimes they smell really bad, but these smell really nice.
Birdhouse gourds aren't edible gourds--when they are growing there is a most definite "don't eat this" smell that comes from them. There are some varieties of Asian gourds that are. Young loofa sponge gourds are supposedly really tasty tempura'd.
The pulp after it is dry is a very soft paper like material. The only use I can think for it would be embedding or making homemade paper with it.