Growing gourds can be a very exciting and interesting adventure!

Start your gourds inside by planting up to but no more than 2 seeds in a 3″ container or pot.  When you are finished potting your seeds-THOROUGHLY soak with water until it flows out the bottom of the pot.  After the initial watering, water like you would a normal house plant.  Soil for gourd seedlings can be on the dry side but do not let it dry out completely.  Keep seedlings in sun.  The more sun they receive, the stronger the plant you will have.  If they receive less light, you may have thin, less hearty plants.  You do not need to fertilize seedlings while they are still inside.  Then around June 1st or AFTER THE THREAT OF FROST (this is very important, frost will kill your plants), plant outside in full sun.

Gourd vines will take over fences, trelises, and other plants if left alone.

Click here to order your seeds!

It’s that time of year in our zone for gourd planting! Growing gourds can be a very exciting and interesting adventure.  Meadowbrooke Gourds is located in Central Pennsylvania, which is in Zone 6 of the United States frost zone.  The instructions that we are going to share are based upon our zone and will vary if you live in different parts of the United States.  It is best to know what zone you are in when planning to grow gourds.

We begin our gourds inside by planting up to but no more than 2 seeds in a 3″ container or pot.  When you are finished potting your seeds-THOROUGHLY soak with water until it flows out the bottom of the pot.  After the initial watering, water like you would a normal house plant.  Soil for gourd seedlings can be on the dry side but do not let it dry out completely.  Keep seedlings in sun.  The more sun they receive, the stronger the plant you will have.  If they receive less light, you may have thin, less hearty plants.  You do not need to fertilize seedlings while they are still inside.

Around June 1st or AFTER THE THREAT OF FROST (this is very important, frost will kill your plants), plant outside in full sun leaving an 8′ area around each plant.  Each plant should have 64 square feet to grow in.  Gourd vines will take over fences, trelises, and other plants if left alone.  An option is to cut or trim ends back to keep them confined to an area.

When watering your plants, avoid getting water on the leaves to avoid the spread of diseases.  We suggest you use soaker hoses or drip irrigation.  Gourd plants actually like to be a little dry and be watered thoroughly when you start to see the leaves wilting.  Overwatering causes disease, large, thin shelled, low quality gourds with lots of vines.  Not enough water produces thick shelled, small, high quality gourds.  Just enough water produces thick shelled, properly sized, high quality gourds.

Check on gourds like you would any other plant that is in your garden.  You can fertilize your gourds like you would any other vine crop (cucumber, watermelon, pumpkins, etc.).  The optimal choice would be to have a soil test conducted and fertilize accordingly.

Happy Growing! Don’t forget, we offer gourd seed packets for sale on our website.

You don’t have to be a professional artist for gourd crafting to be fun! There are numerous projects using raw gourds that can be simple and easy. We are excited to share a series of quick how-to’s for those that want to get their hands into gourd crafting, but may not know where to begin! We hope you enjoy these project sheets and use them as inspiration for your own projects. Please feel free to share them and share your gourd crafting photos with us on Facebook or Twitter.

Our first project is a beautiful, rustic centerpiece made with cleaned, raw egg gourds. This piece can be used for Easter as well as the entire Spring season!

Download the sheet here.

What you will need:
Cardboard box
Gourd Eggs (about one dozen) available at mbgourds.com
Glass containers at varying heights and sizes
Acrylic paint (Robin’s Egg Blue, Off White, and Brown)
Paintbrush
Toothbrush
Green Reindeer Moss

Step 1: Cut holes in a cardboard box for your gourd eggs to sit in without falling through.

Step 2: Decide how many blue, brown, and white eggs you would like to have and paint each accordingly. For the brown eggs: just leave the gourd as its natural color. For blue and white eggs: First, paint the top portion of the egg, let dry. Then flip it over in the cardboard hole to paint the bottom half. These eggs took two coats of acrylic paint to cover completely.

Step 3: Once the eggs are dry, dip a toothbrush in brown acrylic paint mixed with water. The more water the more transparent your “specks” will be. Flick the toothbrush to speckle the eggs to your desired effect and let dry.

Step 4: Fill various glass containers will green reindeer moss found in the floral section of most craft stores. Arrange the eggs in the containers. Enjoy your beautiful Spring display!

To continue our Gourd Easter Egg theme from last week, we have more inspiration coming your way. Painting and dying Easter eggs is a wonderful tradition. We have so many fond memories of dying Easter eggs each year with those we love. Continue a tradition with painting gourd Easter eggs! Your masterpiece and memories will last from year to year.

This coming Friday and Saturday (March 16th & 17th) we are offering the opportunity to paint your own gourd eggs at our retail store (as well as baskets and birdhouses!) Bring the family for this great activity. The cost ranges from $1.00- $12.00 and we supply all the gourds, paints and other supplies (No reservations needed). Kids can even enter their painted egg in our Kids Art Contest! Read more here.

Gourd Easter Egg & Basket Painting at our 2011 Spring Open House

Here are some gourd egg painting ideas to get the inspirations rolling:

Doodle Eggs:

To make these stark black and white doodle eggs, first paint your gourd eggs white and let them dry. Then, simply take a sharpie and draw different patterns, flowers, etc. on the egg. Let your imagination run wild!

Speckled Eggs:

We just love the look of these speckled eggs and they can be used in so many different crafting and decorating applications once they’re painted. Some of these eggs are tea stained and some have been dyed blue using blue food coloring. Since your gourd eggs will already start off as brown, you may be able to skip the tea staining step or use it to alter the natural gourd to your desired brown color. Creating the speckled effect is very easy – just dip brown craft paint with a toothbrush and splatter away.

Chalkboard Eggs:

Chalkboard paint is just so much fun. In addition to its endless uses, why not use it on your gourd Easter eggs? Include a few of these lovelies in an Easter basket and personalize with chalk for the recipient!

Gilded Eggs:

Probably the most simple painting project with gourd eggs, create these gilded gems by spray painting gourd eggs with different metallic spray paints. Display in a basket or glass container to make an elegant statement.

Isn’t gourd egg painting fun??

Purple martins nest almost exclusively in man-made structures like a birdhouse constructed from one of our raw, cleaned gourds. If you’re eager to attract this large swallow species to your backyard, a dried and cleaned gourd can easily be constructed into a birdhouse.

 Procedure:

• Select a well-dried and aesthetically pleasing gourd. Remember, thick walls will ensure that the gourd birdhouse will weather the elements well.  Varieties with broad bottoms like Martin and Bottle make good choices here.
• Using a 2″ circle saw, drill a hole roughly 3 inches above the base of the gourd.  Work slowly to avoid splintering the gourd.  The circle saw bit will leave a clean-edged hole.
• The gourd will still be full of seeds and some internal membranes, so you can empty those out through the hole you just cut. Don’t throw away the seeds! They can be planted to produce your own gourds during the next growing season.
• Drill three small holes in the bottom of the gourd for drainage. 1/8″ will do nicely here.
• Drill two holes at the top of the gourd and thread either sisal twine or thin wire through to hang the birdhouse.
• You are now free to paint, stain or seal your gourd birdhouse in any way you’d like. Bright solid colors work well.

If you need some creative inspiration, here’s a selection of gourd birdhouses available at our online store.

Various gourd shapes make up our MBGourd birdhouses

Raw penguin gourds

If you’re new to crafting with gourds, you’ve probably discovered that there are a dizzying number of gourd varieties – shapes, sizes and grades – available to the crafting consumer. Our raw, cleaned gourds are craft-ready for your next project.

The best way to create a beautiful gourd art piece is to start with a top quality gourd. The most prized gourds among many gourd artisans are those that are symmetrical with a smooth, thick shell without visible cracks or other imperfections. Inspect the surface of the gourd closely and look for cracks or other damage.

Superficial cracks can be easily patched and filled with any commercially available woodfiller.

Choose gourds that have a shape and size that works for your intended craft project. Penguin gourds have a curved neck that many find appealing, but may not stand upright on their own. Bottle gourds have a pinched waist between wider tops and bottoms. Experiment with different sizes and shapes to get those creative juices flowing. Does the raw gourd remind you of something? Build your design around it.

Treat the walls of the gourd as you would treat wood – it can be etched, burned with a woodburning tool, carved, stained and painted. The only limits are your imagination! Just a reminder: gourd dust can be irritating, so be sure to wear a respirator and work in a well-ventilated area if you are going to be cutting your gourd open.

Raw gourds at Meadowbrooke Gourds

For all of you DIYers out there or for those that are just interested in what we do at Meadowbrooke Gourds, here is some insight into one of the steps in gourd crafting- drying.

For those that want to craft and paint their own gourds without the hassle of growing, drying, and cleaning, we do offer raw, cleaned gourds in many shapes and sizes online here.

Here at the farm after the first frost, we cut the gourds off the vine and line them up in rows. There they sit until the snows melt and the ground thaws. By that time they are close to 90% dry. Then we pick them up, and the can begin thier journey to our washing and crafting rooms.

Gourds in our zone in Central Pennsylvania grow from June to October or until the first hard frost hits.  The frost will kill the vine and it will not continue to grow.  After the hard frost hits, pick your gourds and let them dry outside over winter, off the ground (skid, picnic table, etc.) if you can.  It is okay to place them on the ground-they will just take a little longer to dry.  If a gourd has a matured to a hard shell a frost will not harm it.  If a gourd got a late start and is not mature, the frost will make it rot.

A quality gourd will go through a skin decay molding process-this is normal as long as the gourd is still hard and not mushy to the touch.  Do not get discouraged if your gourds look terrible and may even smell.  Small gourds dry faster than larger ones.  Some really large gourds can take up to June the following year to dry completely.  Your gourd is completely dried when it weighs only ounces.  For most, this is around March or April.

Please let us know if you have any gourd drying questions! We’re here to help.

In yesterday’s post we talked about ways to use our Gourdicopia collection to create a stunning Thanksgiving table. We have even more ideas for you today!

Instead of using a bowl or container, create a Thanksgiving centerpiece spread. We absolutely love this table design by Kim Krejca. (view her original post here.)

image by Kim Krejca

Using Williams-Sonoma Great American Turkey dish towels as inspiration and a starting point, Kim used items she had around the house to create this lovely spread.  She incorporated artichokes, pears, dried gourds, pomegranates, artificial white pumpkins and autumn leaves, but the possibilities are really endless!!

Photo by Kim Krejca

Another way to enjoy the rustic simplicity of a raw, cleaned gourd is to craft it into a gourd luminary centerpiece. Just be sure to use an LED tealight in your dried gourds and not a real candle.

image courtesy of marthastewart.com

These examples by Martha Stewart are a great starting point for inspiration! The best thing is, once you create your luminaries they will last for years to come.

We always love reading others ideas for crafting their dried gourds! There are literally endless possibilities. We especially loved this luminary project for fall from Better Homes and Gardens. It is simple, beautiful and sure to give your home a cozy touch. To get started, the article details some tips for drying gourds for those that are growing and drying your own. If you would like to skip that step, Meadowbrooke Gourds offers raw gourds that are already cleaned and dried for you. We have many, many shapes and sizes to choose from and they are available online here.

This project involves wood burning your gourd. We go into more detail about wood burning in a previous blog post. 

From Better Homes and Gardens (bhg.com):

1. Starting with a dried, cleaned gourd you must first cut the gourd. To make cutting the gourds easier and help prevent cracking and breaking, draw the cutting line with a pencil. Using a crafts knife, puncture small slits along the pencil line so it resembles a dotted line. Use the knife to cut between the lines. Smooth out any uneven spots.

2. Using the crafts knife, cut a 3-inch round hole in the bottom of each gourd. Make sure the gourds sit flat. If necessary, slightly shave the bottoms of the gourds so they sit flat.

3. Clean out the inside material.

6. Working in a well-ventilated room or outdoors, use the woodburning tool to burn a circle through the gourd. Burn two more holes to create the three-dot triangular motif.

7. Repeat the burning process around the entire gourd, placing the motifs about 2 inches apart.

8. Paint the gourd with a light coat of raw umber watercolor. Use the brown marker to make stripes on the stems. After the paint dries, spray the gourds with varnish.

9. Place a tea light in a votive cup and slip the gourd over the cup. Make sure the candle’s wick is trimmed short so the flame does not touch the gourd. Never leave burning candles unattended or use a candle without the cup.

These beautiful, fall luminaries are easy to craft! (image by Better Homes and Gardens)

Since a dried gourd can be crafted like a piece of wood, it offers a wonderful medium to be crafted in a multitude of ways. Probably the easiest way to craft a gourd when you’re getting started is to paint them! We are always in awe at the creativity displayed through gourd painting. Many paintings go beyond “crafts” and enter the world of fine art.

A couple hints:
-Acrylic paints or oil paints will work on your gourd
- No need to seal or sand the gourd before painting it
- Let your imagination run wild!!

Here are a few examples of painted gourds that we just love! Use them as inspiration for your own gourd painting projects:

Gourd Art by Bonnie Gibson. arizonagourds.com

So bright and beautiful! (image courtesy of Coconut Grove Grapevine.)

Our very own Dorris Risser's Folk Art Cat Gourd (one of Meadowbrooke Gourd's past painting classes)

Morning Glory and Ladybug gourd painting class

Just adorable! by Aurelia Conway in the book "Great Garden Gourds Book"

Meadowbrooke Gourds offers painting classes throughout the year at our farm in Carlisle, PA. Experience painting gourds with the help of a professional artist! Check our website for upcoming classes.