Making a Birdhouse Gourd Into Something Other than a Birdhouse

At a seed swap years ago, someone gave me some birdhouse gourd seeds.  It was just a few of them.  I thought it would be fun, so I planted them.  They vined like kudzu, taking over the back portion of the garden, the cucumber trellis and then threatened to cover the cows, chickens, and goats.  What a prolific plant!

They produced many birdhouse gourds.  I dried them, sanded them, drilled a hold in the side and cut dowels to be used as a perch for the feathered occupants.  Then a hole was cut in the neck and a leather strap was fastened to it.  We hung the birdhouses in the pecan tree.  They looked so welcoming and inviting.  And they were.  But not to birds.  Wasps found that they provided protection from the weather and moved in.  Before we knew it, all of the wasps hung NO VACANCY signs.  They were full.

Birdhouse gourds produce a bajillion seeds and they come up volunteer every year.  Last year we had yet another bumper crop of wasp houses... errr birdhouses.  I vowed never again.  Tricia decided she'd make some colorful ornaments to hang from the tree.  We just wouldn't drill a hole in them this time!  Here's some of the gourds, sanded and ready for painting.

The industrious lady of the manor fashioned a mechanism with bungee cords and temporary electric fence posts to hang the gourds for painting.

The first three were painted a glossy cobalt blue.

I looked over and she had an assembly line of gourd processing underway.

Some were green...

Some were happy yellow...

The wasps (and birds) will have to seek out a realtor for their home searches.  These will be unoccupied decorations only!

Birdhouse Gourds Are Flourishing

Check out the birdhouse gourd vines and luffah gourd vines that completely cover the cattle panel trellises we have in the center of the garden.  The yellow flowers are the luffah gourds.  The birdhouse gourds have a white flower.  The flowers that cover the vine are nice to look at.  On a Saturday morning there is a lot of bee activity as they buzz in and go flower to flower pollinating.

The vines are so thick and they keep sending out growth.  The tendrils wrap around anything.  I think if I stood still they'd wrap around me and Tricia would have to come free me from their grip with a machete.  Amazingly, all this growth is from 3 luffah gourd plants grown from seed and 3 birdhouse gourd plants grown from seed.  Both were seeds saved from previous years.

The luffah gourd flower reminds me a little of a a hibiscus. 

As I lift up the canopy of leaves and look beneath, I see a multitude of birdhouse gourds that are growing and maturing.

I will continue to let them grow until ultimately they will dry out on the vine.

At that point, I'll drill a hole in the bottom and make a birdhouse.  I'll show you how I do this later this fall.  The two that are hanging below are from two or three years ago.  I have them hanging in the backyard from a pecan tree. 

It is a cool little craft to make and give away.  Some people paint them white, but I like the natural color.  I would like to tell you that birds moved into the birdhouses and raised a family there, and perhaps they had in the past.  Right now, unfortunately, each one has a big wasp nest inside.  That is probably why the birds don't move in.  Killing the wasps in the birdhouses are on my project list for this weekend.

Random Sightings From the Garden Today

In the late afternoon we drift into the garden.  We do a little harvesting, a little weeding, and a lot of just observing what is going on.  I am making lists of things that need to get done this week.  One of the first things is to go ahead and cut all the tomatoes down and remove their trellises to make room for the fall crop that I'll be planting later on.

I harvested a few peppers from a new variety that I planted this year.  They are called Lipstick Peppers.  This organic variety is a sweet pepper that is great for roasting. We'll have to check them out.  They sure pass the eye test.  That is a pretty pepper right there!

The trellis that supports the vines of our Birdhouse gourds and Luffa gourds is overflowing with healthy vines.  They are unaffected by the heat.  These things are like kudzu.  I halfway worry that I'll wake up tomorrow morning to find that these vines have enveloped our house and vehicles.

If you peek under the canopy, you can see the birdhouse gourds growing.  I'm hoping to harvest a bunch of these this year and make into birdhouses.  I still have two hanging from the limbs of a pecan tree that I made several years ago.

We have a habit of always tossing something over the garden fence for the animals to eat.  They enjoy the bounty of the garden, too.  So they are conditioned to gather around when we are in the garden.  Below you can see one of our roosters. 

This is a 'rescue rooster.'  The sister of a friend of ours got this fellow from Tractor Supply when it was just a chick.  He was supposed to be a hen.  He had other plans.  As the rooster grew older, it became clear that this guy was going to lay no eggs and would also make a lot of noise.  Roosters aren't allowed in the city.  So, we ended up with him.  I think he is a nice looking rooster.  Sometimes when new birds are introduced, the other birds gang up and attack and will sometimes kill the newcomer.  This guy held his own.  He is a welcome addition to our flock.

Of course the goats, being nosy, social critters that they are, they gather around the garden fence, too!  Annie, Matilda, and Agnes are attempting to look nonchalant and not actively begging me to toss them some greens.

When I don't immediately toss them something, I get a stare-down from Annie, a well-done attempt at making me feel guilty. 

I fall victim to her shaming and quickly find something to toss her to eat.  We'll see ya'll tomorrow.

Saturday Morning Stroll

Saturday mornings are a glorious time.  No rushing out the door.  No deadlines.  We go at our own pace.  The cows and chickens aren't overly concerned that we are a couple hours later than we usually are.  We get our morning chores done at a leisurely pace and then enjoy a good cup of coffee on the front porch in the rocking chairs while talking.  After a bit, I'll go out and just walk around observing God's creation all around me, soaking it all in and seeing things that I might otherwise miss.

I spotted a lady bug on the post in the garden.  Seeing this glossy red bug is fortuitous because this girl is a beneficial insect.  Most insects I see in my garden are not friends, but this one certainly is.  She eats aphids and other destructive insects.  She lays her eggs amidst the aphids and her larvae eat up the aphids too. I'd like to encourage more and more lady bugs in and around the garden.

As I closed the gate to the garden and noted that the entire picket fence is in disrepair, something bright and yellow caught my eye.  I walked up and saw this sight:

These bright yellow flowers belong to our Birdhouse Gourds that are growing on a trellis. The vines are resplendent in big yellow flowers opening to the sun.  They must be full of sweet nectar, because as I was standing there admiring the beauty, honey bees flew amonst the vines going from flower to flower.  As I looked closer, I could see fire ants climbing on the flowers as well.

Those flowers will soon be transformed into birdhouse gourds, named as such because the gourds from this plant can be easily transformed into birdhouses.  In fact here is a tiny one below.  While it is only two inches long right now, at maturity it will be two feet long and large enough to house a family of birds.

On the same trellis just six feet over, the luffa gourds are also growing.  Their flowers aren't as pretty and look like off-white crepe paper.  I don't see any luffas yet, but they'll be full of gourds that we will use as shower sponges.

It's interesting all the things that you can see if you slow down and enjoy the garden.  I noticed a serpent in the garden.  It was coiled up on one of the bell pepper plants.  Tricia told me she wouldn't be picking peppers when this guy was around. He's just a harmless garter snake and not a bad one.  He was not up to any evil and he certainly didn't talk or tempt us into eating fruit in the garden.  We all know how that ended up.

Just a few plants over there were other cold-blooded creatures sunning themselves on the leaves of the eggplant.  Check out the lizards at the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions of the picture below.

In addition to observing nature and enjoying the morning, I'm also making notes of things that I need to do.  For now, at least, I'll enjoy the coolness of the morning. Pretty soon the sun will rise above the oak trees to the east that keep the garden in shade.  Then it will be unbearable in the garden until the late afternoon and things once again cool down.

That’s For the Birds

Back in THIS POST we showed you some birdhouse gourds that I was growing in the garden.  I usually just plant things that you can eat, but these seeds were given to me at a seed exchange and I thought, “Let’s give this a try.”  Here’s a picture of them still green and growing, vining all over the place and producing oblong, odd-shaped gourds.

Yes, that was back in August 2014.  Well, I eventually harvested the gourds after allowing them to dry on the vine.  They have been sitting on my workbench for two years.  That is a crying shame, isn’t it?  I didn’t give them much thought other than moving them out of the way when a project required the use of the top of my workbench.  Every once in a while, I’d shake them and the seeds inside made sounds like maracas do.  Other than that, I had almost forgotten about them.  Tricia told me that she wanted to just throw them away.  I’m glad she didn’t.  Here are the gourds in the space they’ve occupied for much too long.

After procrastinating for about 2 years, I finally motivated myself to commence making birdhouses from our birdhouse gourds.  I’m not much of a craftsman, but I’m pleased with the final product and wanted to show you how the process went.  First, I drilled out a 1 inch diameter hole in each of the gourds.  The gourd exterior is hard, like wood.

The gourds are chock-full of seeds that look kind of like teeth!  I shook them all out.

Here are all the gourds drilled out sitting on a pile of seeds.

Lots and lots of seeds!

In fact, I saved a bunch of the seeds and stored them.  If anyone would like some Birdhouse Gourd Seeds FOR FREE, let me know and I’ll pass some along to you.  They are fun to grow and watch mature.  I think kids would get a kick out of them.

Next, I drilled three holes in the bottom.  This is important.  If you didn’t, they would fill with water in a rainstorm, drowning the bird family that occupied the birdhouse.  These drains will keep the birds high and dry within the confines of their home. 

Then I drilled holes beneath the entry hole to each birdhouse, added wood glue to the edges, and inserted dowels that I cut.  These will serve as the perch.  I can envision Momma bird standing on the perch while delivering food to her babies inside.

I hung the gourds on the clothesline outside to allow the glue holding the perches to fully dry, but I’m not done yet.

I opened a can of polyurethane and brushed several coats onto the gourds.  I wanted to seal the gourd from the weather since they’ll be outside.  Many people paint their birdhouse gourds.  I see a lot of them hanging around our area painted white.  I opted to just use a clear polyurethane as I think the natural color looks cool.

It was then that I realized that I should probably enlarge the entry holes to accommodate birds with larger girth.  While some of our birds are very small, some are ‘super-sized’ and may not fit into the smaller opening.  I inserted a grinding wheel onto my drill and enlarged all of the openings.

Nice weather arrived and I hung them in a pecan tree in a spot right outside our garage door that Tricia calls, “The Grove.”  Here are all four of them hanging in the shade ready for occupancy:

Here’s one birdhouse up close.

And here is the finished product.

If I was a bird I would promptly move into one of the “Our Maker’s Acres Manufactured Homes.”  It’s by no means a gated community, but the neighborhood is nice enough and there seems to be vacancy and plenty of room to spread out my wings and raise a brood.

Checking on the Gourds in the Garden

It is still a slow time in the garden.  I'm waiting on it to dry up a little since it has been raining every day.  I'm going to work in some additional topsoil on the southernmost part of the garden as soon as it dries in order to raise up the level since the ground stays very wet on that side.  Once I have the ground ready, I'll transplant the Fall crop seedlings into the garden that I've been babying on the back patio.

I often say that I only like to plant things that I can eat.  I have a couple of exceptions to that rule that I'm trying this year.  I posted on it earlier, but I have an update on the two types of gourds I have planted on the last row closest to the barn.

The first type is Birdhouse Gourds.  Birdhouse Gourds grow fast and furious and you end up with a lot of them if your goats don't eat the ones that grow on the fence. Doggone Goats!  Here's a little one that is just starting to grow.  You can see the remnants of the flower on the end of it.

A Baby Birdhouse Gourd

Here are a couple more that are hanging off of the fence.  They are certainly some curious looking things, aren't they?:

As I was looking at the one below, I guess if you cut half of the bottom off, you could made a dipper with it. You know, like in the movies where you'd see people dipping it into a bucket of water to get a drink?  I've never grown these before, so we'll see how it goes.

The Big Dipper?

I have no problem growing them, but due to our tropical, oppressively hot and humid climate, getting anything to dry without molding, mildewing and rotting is next to impossible, but I'm going to give it a try and we'll see if we meet with success.  The gourds in the photo below are getting close to the end of the growth stage.  What will happen next is that the stem will turn brown.  At that point I'll get it off the ground and allow it to hang, getting plenty of airflow around it.  Drying and curing is not for the impatient as it takes several months of drying before you put a hole in it for the entry to the birdhouse. 

Maturing gourds

So homeless birds in the area, if you need a house, you'd better look elsewhere as it will be several months before I'll cut a hole in these.  Move in date is quite a ways off and I'm a novice at doing this, so your birdhouse might be a 'fixer-upper'.

Birdhouse Gourd

Another type of gourd I have growing in the same vicinity is the Luffa Gourd.  While the birdhouse gourds will be used by the birds, hopefully the luffa gourds will be used by us.  Once they are dried, you peel back the skin, shake out the seeds and they make wonderful bath sponges and are great for exfoliation. I'll show you that process when they fully dry. 

Luffa Gourds growing away

After reading more on luffa gourds, I learned that these CAN be eaten!  When they are 7 inches long are less, they can be used as a substitute for cucumbers.  I've got my eye on this one and I'll let you know how it tastes.

Bath & Body Works?

If it doesn't taste great, I do have some Fall seedlings of cucumbers that I'll be putting in the ground, so hopefully we'll have more cukes on the way.