Getting Your Gourd...Seeds

A while back, I wrote about growing and preserving bottle gourds - today, I want to share how to harvest the seeds.  I know it seems fairly straightforward, but since Robin found a few decorative gourds at Goodwill, some that still had seeds in them, I decided to do some seed saving.

Unless you're going to make a ladle or a birdhouse, it's probably best to make a small hole at the bottom of the gourd to collect the seeds.  You need the hole to be large enough for the seeds to fit through, but not enough to ruin whatever you may want to make with the gourd in the future.  I got out my electric drill and used a 9/16 inch bit - these are larger bits that look more like Neptune's trident than the spiral ones we're used to seeing.

I wasn't sure if this would crack or break the gourd when I drilled into it, but, almost without exception, I ended up with very round holes.  On one of the gourds a small piece chipped off the edge of the hole, but it was pretty small.

Once there is a hole in the gourd, it's pretty simple after that.  I put a bag over the gourd and shook the seeds out.  That's it.  Once it's empty you can use it for your craft project, whether it is a birdhouse, a ladle or carving designs into it, like the ones we have.  There are so many choices.

Rainy Day

We've had rain in the forecast for the past two weeks.  Election day was cold and overcast and it warmed up for a few days - then it turned cold and wet again.  This whole week has been cold and threatened to rain, but never did...until today.  I knew the weather report, but didn't completely trust it.  I had plans to get out in the yard and finish the broken concrete path that's been sitting there for way too long.  No such luck today - so I thought I would talk about something that happens this time every year.  People throw plant and fall decorations away.

For years I've picked up dying houseplants from the curb that people have decided that they don't want anymore.  Most of the time there is usually something a little wrong with them.  People throw the plants away at the start of cold weather either, because they have neglected them and they are dying - or in the best cases, they are very healthy and they just want a change.  It's really hit or miss - I pick up a lot of tender houseplants that may be beyond help, that I can't do anything with, but on occasion I get something decent.  Back in April I picked up a hibiscus and a palm that someone must have had around the house all winter and then decided to get rid of.  This was a luck find - it was spring, so I didn't have to worry about protecting them from the cold.  The hibiscus was so large, I was able to divide it into three plants - one for the front, one for the back, and one for the plant swap.  They have bloomed constantly over the last seven months.

Recently I've picked up a number of other houseplants, etc and I started posting photos of them on Tumblr - take a look.  There have been succulents, alliums, tuberous begonias...  This time last year I noticed something else people were starting to throw out - their Halloween/autumn harvest decorations - mostly bales of hay.  Last year I picked up four or five bales of hay that I was able to use in the garden and for the chickens.  It was a little bit of a windfall, but I'm not getting my hopes up.  I have been looking around, trying to see who has fall decorations that they might be getting rid of soon.  I didn't think about this last year, but I imagine that people will be discarding other items as well, specifically pumpkins, winter squash and the like.  I wouldn't pick up jack-o-lanterns - only whole fruits.

I expect that after Thanksgiving people will getting rid of fall decorations in favor of Christmas ones, so in the next couple of weeks, I'll be keeping my eye out for these things.

Trellising

I had plans to write about growing plants on trellises last year, but I never got around to it.  We have some latticework hiding our garden storage area and I was thinking about growing vining vegetables on it this spring.  Those plans changed when we decided to expand the kitchen into the garden storage.  We haven't done that yet, but I'm giving up on using it as a trellis.  I've decided to add trellises to each of my  raised beds to increase the varieties of vegetables that I can grow.

During the past several summers, I had constructed some sort of trellis for supporting pole beans, but it was always temporary or very last minute - it never lasted longer than the season and I would do something different the next year.  This year I'd like to do something I can use every year, but also, so that I can put it away in the winter.  There's a section in the "Square Foot Gardening" book about building garden structures, but I think I donated my copy during a recent decluttering.

While I'm curious about growing interesting vegetables, I'm also practical.  Recently I started growing only vegetables that I knew we would eat and growing as much as possible.  Some of the plants I plan to trellis are either curiosities or untested as to whether we will eat them.  I saw a photo accompanying an article on trellising and they grew pumpkins - they used stockings to support the fruits as they grew larger.  I want to do that!

So, my trellising - I'm definitely going to plant pole beans and cukes in the spring.  As it get later into the summer, I'll be planting more experimental plants.  In my search for vining plants, I've decided to try winter squash.  It's just another variety of squash that takes longer to mature, but will keep for a lot longer - good for use as a winter storage vegetable.

I got a dried apple gourd from a recent plant swap and at some point I cracked it open and collected the seeds.  I planted some last year, but they never made it out of the seed flats.  This year I think I'll plant some on a trellis and hopefully get some apple gourds of my own.

Front Yard Garden

I was glad to be off this past Wednesday, because I still had plants I wanted to get in the ground - and it took me longer than expected. I was expanding the vegetable garden into the beds in the front yard and had to move the plants that were there. After taking Ella to school, I went by the recycling center to get some compost, but they were out. I thought this was a little strange, but it was Earth Week and there is a sale on compost during April, according to Ken Burger's column in today's paper. It was also raining sporadically, so with two strikes against working in the yard, I took the morning off.

Once I made it outside, I started clearing the bed of plants - mostly lilies, but also a citrus that survived the winter that I had to pot up. After digging up the six or seven clumps of lilies - crinum asiaticum(I think) - I decided that, since I didn't know where they were going yet, until I do, I should pot them up for now. I was thinking about doing a mass planting somewhere, but don't know just yet. And while I'm digging, I figure I should go ahead and divide the clumps - they're quite large. I spent the rest of the morning and through lunchtime dividing and potting the lilies, ending up with 35 of them, some having multiple bulblets too small to divide.

I had an afternoon of non-gardening activities to do, so it was early evening before I got back to work. I worked some compost from a near-empty raised bed into the front garden and laid out three hills for squash, a place for watermelon to roam and room for supports for cucumbers and gourds. I planted nine Early Prolific Straightneck squash in the three hills and four watermelon vines, but I still need to get supports for the cukes and some for beans as well.

We had some much needed rain this weekend and the corn I planted a week ago is coming up, So everything is going well.

Weekend Gardening

All week I was looking forward to Sunday - I was planning to work in the yard, planting corn, pulling weeds, etc. When Sunday rolled around, I was feeling lazy. I decided that I would pull up the lettuce and spinach and prepare that bed for the corn, even though it wasn't the bed I wanted them in.

After I composted the lettuce, I put the spinach in the fridge for later. Once the bed was empty, I took a look at it and decided something need to be done. If you remember from before, this is the first bed I built and it's a little different than the other beds. I decided that I needed to fix that - it was just one concrete block longer than the others. Once I pulled the soil away from one end, I moved and leveled the blocks. The extra soil plus some compost went into my newest bed - one that was built, but not yet filled.

Since I filled the new bed, I planted corn there - where I wanted it to begin with. I planted two varieties - Early Sunglow Hybrid and Silver Queen Hybrid. I was having the gardener's version of writer's block - I couldn't decide what to plant in the other empty bed. I considered bush beans or cow peas, but ultimately I decided to transplant the three Razzelberry Hybrid tomatoes from one of the seed flats. With half a seed flat free, I put some sunflower seeds in it to germinate - I need more seed flats!

I've been dieing to get my squash, cukes and watermelon in the ground. I took another look at our front bed to see what I needed to move. I'm thinking about moving the phlox in front of the hedges and maybe do a mass planting somewhere with the asiatic lilies. I could put the Rose of Sharon somewhere else and I want to put the citrus back into a pot. It's starting to come back to life, but I don't know when.

While I was messing around the back yard, I decided to take a look at the plants we got at the plant swap. One of the things was a dried apple gourd. I thought I'd harvest the seed to grow my own - the birdhouse gourd seeds I'm trying to germinate haven't sprouted yet. While I was at it I went ahead and picked the dried fruit from the ornamental pepper, so I could get the seeds later.

All and all, it was a productive day. I got a lot done and I know what I have a plan for the near future. Hopefully, I have Wednesday off and I'll get the veggies planted in the front bed.

Spring Park Circle Plant Swap

This past Saturday was the Park Circle Plant Swap. We had been out of town for spring break earlier in the week, so I didn't have a lot of time to get my plants together. I had a good idea what I wanted to take, but after our winter there wasn't a lot around to take. The morning of the swap, I sorted through the plants in the driveway, deciding which to keep and which to swap. I ended up taking some sago palms, Mexican petunia, wild garlic, dwarf papyrus, a few cactuses and a handful of daffodils. Oh, and some plant I got off the side of the road, divided and repotted. It turns out it might be a wax myrtle.

There were definitely a lot more people at the swap this time - it just keeps getting more popular. Unfortunately, the plant selection wasn't thrilling. I say that, but I should mention that the plants were a lot of what I already have. There was nothing I was extremely excited by.

I did get some interesting things - a loropetalum (a shrub that we probably won't plant and it will die of neglect), Chinese lantern, peppermint, sugarcane, daylilies, succulent (for the desert garden), dried apple gourd (for the seeds), and a few other things. In hindsight, it was a nice morning. I have some things I like - I think I just have too much to do in the yard.