hqcreations:Regrowing Bottle GourdsAfter a recent business trip to China, my old man brought me back
hqcreations:Regrowing Bottle GourdsAfter a recent business trip to China, my old man brought me back an interesting little present: a bottle gourd. In the old days, these gourd canteens were used to carry small pellets of medicine or booze…both healing in my opinion. This gourd has been outfitted with a wooden plug, but much to my - shake shake shake - surprise, the gourd was still filled with seeds..AND THEY ARE VIABLE! I’m so excited to grow these into mature fruits next year. Ever since I made these gourd containers following instructions posted by @hyggehaven, I’ve had this repressed obsession to transform large gourds into dishes, scoops, containers and - OMG I can’t even! This is one primitive craft I really want to perfect one day.Oh WOW!!! How cool is that?!?!? Those gourds are all over China, even used symbolically in temple designs!!!!!!! @hyggehaven I presume that oven temp is for 100C? This oven method looks great, much faster and easier to deal with than air drying.I wonder if there’s any special techniques to use to preserve them? It seems like most stuff on the internet calls for enamel, “paste wax”, or shellac, but they’re using them for craft projects and not food safe ones. Someone recommended using leather dye and then sealing with something clear. It would be awesome to make food-safe dishes or kitcheny things out of these. I have 3 hanging around my kitchen right now, awaiting their fate.Here’s what an amish gourd farmer has to say about curing them, although it sounds like they need a lot of space, air flow, and some place that they won’t be disturbed by critters. Yeah, I’ll have to stick with the oven for now. -- source link
#plantlust#hqcreations#china#cucurbita#gourds