FOR THE LOVE OF GOURDS
By: Carmella Dunkin
If you have ever seen a crafted Gourd, you know how wonderful they are. If you have never seen a crafted Gourd, then you need to, because they are just AWESOME!!!
I (Carmella), first discovered what could be done with a gourd, back in 1990, when a friend and I bought some of those cute little colorful Gourds they sell in the stores. After a couple of months of having these little beauties, they dried out, and the seeds began to rattle around inside. Well we sat down with some paints and painted those little Gourds, and turned them into little rattles.
We were so impressed with our little rattles, that we started searching the library for books on Gourds. We found very few, but were fortunate enough to find one that listed an American Gourd Society, so we contacted them for more info on Gourds. We never expected to learn all they had to share. We discovered that the Gourds we bought at the store were called Cucurbita Gourds, or ornamental Gourds. Then we learned that there was another type of Gourd, the Lagenari Gourd. We also learned that there were many varieties of both. In the Cucurbita family there are eggs, crown of thorns, spoons, spinners, and that is only a few. In the Lagenari family you have, bottles, maranka, dippers, bushels, bird house, swan, kettle, banana, snake, zulu, apple, pear, and so many others. There are many Gourds from Japan, Indonesia, and many other countries. In sort, there are so many different varieties of Gourds in the world, that you could write a book on them all, and in fact, we are planning to do exactly that. So far my Husband Dan and I have worked together in growing, and crafting thousands of Gourds, as well as writing two booklets, one on cleaning processes, and one on growing and pruning process A dear friend of ours did an ID chart for the American Gourd Society back in 1992, and Dan has since updated that chart and added many more Gourds to it. Dan's two page chart appeared in the Winter issue of "The Gourd", a quarterly publication put out by the AGS. He has since expanded it to a three page chart, and is now looking at expending that to a book, complete with drawings, descriptions, growing time, just about anything that would need to be known about each variety. We also are working on a book that will cover just about everything to do with a Gourd, including all the above mentioned info, as well as experiments we have conducted with growing, and pollination. Cross breeding to get a certain shape. Harvesting before the big freeze sets in verses leaving your Gourds in the patch to winter over, saving seeds, and a section on safe and healthy Gourding. Plus links to lots of Gourd related sites on the web.
All that said, let us share with you all, the 2003 Ohio Gourd Show in Mt Gilead, Ohio..... The show was just awesome! We met so many wonderful Gourd people. Many of the folks we met, we already knew from the Patch Pal e-mail group, and it was great being able to finally meet everyone face to face.
Next we got to go around looking at all the beautifully crafted Gourds, and believe me, there are some really awesome Gourd Artist in this Country, and most were not even at the Ohio show, but many were. To see some of the wonderful work that was entered into the competitions, visit our Gourd web site at, www.thegourdreserve.com, click on the drop down window titled, "Galleries", then click on, "Ohio show".
Dan and I took a total of 4 first place, as well as a few second, fourth, and fifth place positions too. Dan took first on his wonderful wood burned bird feeder house Gourd. He also took first on an egyptian trinket box Gourd, also wood burned, and he took first on a dry specimen Gourd, which he green cleaned, and oven dried last fall.
I took first for the tiniest mature fresh Gourd, which was grown in a hanging basket on our front porch this year. Yes, you can grow Gourds in planters too! In fact we grew five different vines in planters this year, and yielded somewhere around 200 small Gourds from them. I also took fourth and Dan took fifth, in the smallest dry Gourd category.
All in all, the Ohio show was GREAT!!! We met a lot of wonderful Gourders, won lots of ribbons, and had a great weekend. We had our Gourd booklets, Gourders' Delight hand cream, Gourd charts, Stationery, and of course, lots of Gourds to craft.
Our next show will be the first weekend in November, (November 1st and 2nd), at Shelbyville Middle School. We will have our Gourd booklets, Gourd charts, Gourders' Delight hand cream, Gourd Christmas ornaments, and some dry cleaned Gourds, ready to be crafted. Dan will also be doing some demonstrations on green cleaning a Gourd, and if we all are lucky, he will demonstrate his wood burning, it's AWESOME.
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