YUK !!! I THREW THEM AWAY !

Hello ! I have a few tips and some advice for you when your gourds in your garden at the end of summer look like they are mature and ready to pick. DON:T PICK  them if you can help it . Let them sit all winter on the vine, some may fall off the vine but its best to leave them all winter & harvest them in the spring. I;ve had customers say they picked them and they shrivled up or dried up and rotted, I tell them to DON"T PICK ! Because 90% of the time thats what happens. Then I have had customers say to me that thet tried growing gourds but at the end of the season they left them out all winter on the vine but come spring time they were so moldy that they threw them away and I say NO DON"T throw them away  they are really suppose to look like that heres a picture of some with mold on them but the mold can be worse .  Then to clean them I put them in some bleach water ( about a cap full ) & soak them for maybe 15 mins to 1/2 hour. Then I put on a face mask & take a Scotch Brite stainless steel scrubbing pad & scrub the mold off, it comes off easy.           Heres a picture of how they look with mold and cleaned . I hope this helps some of you who might have wondered.    One other tidbit if you leave them out all winter & they freeze the seeds inside will be no good for planting, so if you want to harvest some seeds for next year planting you need to pick one or two  just before the first freeze  & store in a cool place til it cures & you'll know cuz gourds are about 905 water & heavy & when they dry they are light in weight. If you have any questions please ask & post them in the comment box or email me & I will answer them .                                             

Ha ! Ha ! Caught Him !

Hello !  Well Kaiden was up to no good again ! But ya know what, I caught him before he made it out the  door ! His disguise didn't work this time !

                                                                                   

Add caption

So I left him in the house and went outside to check on my little gourd plants. Right now I still have the cute little baby plants in the little peat pots & those little peat pots are Great ! I just Love them ! It makes it so much easier to ( when its time ) to transplant them into the ground , the pots themselves since they are made of peat just dissingrate in the earth after a few days , so there is no disturbine the roots of the baby plant. But I still need to locate a place where I can rent a rototiller. & to tell you the truth I need to do it really soon because the little baby gourds are growing leeps & bounds since the last time I posted some pictures of them. They grow so fast & I;m lovin it ! So here is some pictures of what they look like today !

HAVEN;T THEY GROWN !

Thank You for checkin in and please be sure to chec out my Etsy & Facebook page

Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/inmypaintedgard

Welcome to my workshop !

Hello and Welcome to my place of work! Well the place where I do all my painting, & jewerly. I used to NOT have a place for all my tools. I used to have all my paints, brushes, gourds spread across the kitchen table. When ever we went to sit down to eat I would have to clear a spot large enough for the 4 of us to put our plates and that was about it . My husband new how much I love to paint so one day when I was at work him & my son decided to build me a craft room in the garage, he let me pick out the paint but that was about it. They wouldn't let me see it for about a week. I LOVE IT !  Take a look ! 

It Was The Dog !! But The Gourds Won !!

Hi Y'all ! It;s been about 2 weeks since I planted some gourd seeds in those little pressed  pods ! Those pods  are Great ! Well I had 3 that were popping up really nice & I decided to put those 3 in a bigger pot together until I got a rototiller and start putting them in the ground. I set the pot on a table and I wasn't thinking about my lab dog Kaiden, he just loves to pick any new plant or tree you plant in the yard. I went back out later to plant some more seeds when I noticed one whole plant pod and all was plucked right out of the pot ! I should have known !! LOL !! So I hollard KAIDEN & set off looking for him well I found him trying to hide incognito with the evidence hanging out of his mouth !  You wouldn't have believed him either once you take a look at him !  So here are some new pictures of my little gourd starters and the 2 bigger ones left in the big pot  !                                                                                                                        

My New Little Gourd Garden ?

Well I tried to grow a gourd garden here in Tenn 2 years ago,  I had planted martin house, apple , egg & a few others. Well  I waited & waited & finally there there were little green balls and bottles. I had planted some against my fence ,so they would have something to climb on then there is a little run of from the mountains around our house and gourds need alot of water so I planted some on the other side of the run off against another fence with a bunch of trees,but this was trial and error, you see where we live is built on alot of shelf rock .l The water was great, they grew but it took forever for them to take any kind of shape, which they shape they took was nothing I had ever seen before. They were done  for. So last year we made a square foot garden  for vegetables my husband put 3 kinds of dirt  &.a bunch of different vegetables They came up beautiful  got about a foot tall then as the days got warmer ( I was always told to soak at night & before the sun in the morning if you could ) & warmer they started dying off no, well we realized my husband  had put 2 bags manure instead of dirt,burnt them right up !! we tried to fix it but to no luck!

    Now to the present I am starting with some seed's  & some pea pods & some garden soil &  here's the process for starting most gourd seeds  1. You have to nick the side slightly & then soak in water for 24 hours this helps in germanation. So now were just about up to date. Tomorrow I off to rent a rototiller. I;ll be posting more pictures as the garden grows ! LOL !

My Gourd Fantasy

This is what it;s all about for me Gourds ! Gourds of all shape & sizes ! I fell in love with them about 10 years ago, I saw someone paint on one & that's all it took,I didn't know how to paint new nothing about gourds but was more than willing to learn. I had done alot of other crafting , sewing, making soaps etc. but my son would would come home from school & turn on the painting channel & we would sit & watch it & I thought they make it look so easy so I went & bought all the things I needed & practiced on everything & loved it, so then I sought out a farmer who grew & sold gourds in Michigan ( we lived there at the time) & he let us come out to the farm & took us out in the field & picked our own , then he took us back & show us his barns & explained all about gourds to us,I LOVED IT !! I painted a bunch of gourds , Santa's,snowman but my favorites to paint are character gourds & flower gourds, my brother-in-law to them to work & sold about 25 of them, I sold to friends & did the big Clinton Mi craft show with my sister she did lighted blocks , we did great. The next year I decided to try growing them I had a FANTASTIC garden vegetables,flowers & gourds , we lived nest to a gastation & the gourds we climbing the pine trees int the back yarde & across the phone lines to the gas station, it was GREAT had everybody in that small little town talking about my gourds & when we picked them from the gas tation phone lines my husband & son held the laddeer while I climbed up & picked them WOW ! So heres some pics of my garden in Michigan !  Hope Ya like them !

Main Street Festival Franklin, Tennessee

 These folks are Curtis & Cheryl Sutton,from Dowelltown, TN,  they own C-N-C flagstone creations, beautiful work, they transfer artwork & photographs onto flagstone.we had a good conversation about their creations.

Yesterday my son Chace & I went to Franklin Tn, for the annual Main Street Festival,. What a Great art & craft festival, lots & lots of booths , country music on every corner, elbow to elbow people . Met alot of Great crafters, I wasn't able to get into this festival this year , I  felt I didn't have enough stock ready. But next year !!!!