And to the victor go the spoils! In this case, the victor is the almighty gourd and, well, let’s hope none spoil.
It seems like a match made in heaven, me and my gourds. As an artist, this is a resource I could certainly use. There are many crafts that involve gourds, from very functional bowls and drums to merely decorative gourd art. I’m sure that I (in all my spare time) can find a use for a few, at least. The rest I can sell to my fellow artists and craftspeople. Maybe donate some to a local high school arts program.
I’ve already purchased my seeds. I have large bottle gourds (the kind most people are used to), snake gourds (which, as the name implies, snake around on the ground into really fluid fruits), large dipper gourds (which are shaped, for lack of a better analogy, like polite penguins) and goblin egg gourds (think large poultry eggs – but green).
I have the perfect spot in the yard for them. It’s cut off from the rest of the yard by a gate and it gets the first sun in the morning. It’s a mess right now (because no one ever sees it and I couldn’t come up with a plan for it until now) but my project before the end of Winter is to have it groomed and waiting for multiple gourd transplants come Spring. It’s 10×30’. Time will tell if that is big enough for a small backyard gourd farm. (Please keep in mind that I use “farm” in the humble, most ironic, sense of the word. Perhaps gourd “nook” is more appropriate, but it lacks a certain vision and pizzazz.)
Behold, my vision:
