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| This is Larry Eckler the owner |
What a GREAT weekend for a trip to the " Gourd Farm" I had called a couple of days ahead of time to make sure they would be open and to make sure he would have plenty of the gourds that we use the most ! As you can see yes they did and even more !! We have been going to the same gourd farm since I first started painting gourds
" Eckler Farms " . The first couple of years we were able to go to his farm during harvest time, at that time you are able to go out in the fields and pick what ever was ready (which was almost the whole 4 fields ) he would drive us around drop us off we would make piles of what we wanted then he would come get us and the gourds and take us to another field and we would do the same ) it was so much fun !! Besides being fun he taught us alot about gourds about seeds, growing them and about harvesting the gourds ! The moldier the better !!
But since we moved to Tennessee , the pictures I post of my gourd garden here are beautiful ! They vine all over the place with lots of flowers and gourds but my gourds are thin the whole gourd I think I have had maybe 4 or 5 good ones ! I only use quality gourds! The area where we live in middle Tennessee is more slate than soil and gourds need a sandy type soil .
So therefore we take a trip when needed usually once a year because Ecklers have Great quality gourds ! ( I will post a link to his website below ) So we took a trip to his farm it was a Beautiful weekend and when we got there Larry Eckler came and greeted us and showed us where all the specialty gourds were like eggs and mini bottles and well you can see in the pictures All the gourds we had to choose from ! He had bins and bins of all sorts of gourds like martins, large bottles. apples canteens, snake , swans,. Then in side one of the barns were cleaned apples, eggs, long handle dippers .
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| Egg Gourds |
This green house had soo many egg gourds that seemed to stretch on for well...you can see for yourself it doesn't seem to end . In the picture below is a bin full of clean dried apple gourds
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| Cleaned Apple gourds |
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| Those are long handled dipper gourds |
Also in the same barn next to the apples were the cleaned long handled dippers ( We haven't really tried to make anything out of the dippers yet )
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| A bin full of mini bottle gourds |
In these pictures here I had taken them inside one of the big barns and all the bins were full. In the background there outside this barn are many green houses and my husband & son decided to check it out. It was full of GIANT Hot House tomatoes. They also sell a variety of vegetables and seeds ,
Here are just a few of the gourds we were setting aside as we were picking what we wanted and needed. Unless you have crates and a trailer which we don't he asks that you bring your own garbage bags or what ever is needed for what you buy!
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| a bushel of gourd eggs |
Larry Eckler s Farms is well known and when we were there many many customers for the fresh vegetables !
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| My husband loading up and tying up the gourds for the trip home. |
We had a GREAT Big haul of those BEAUTIFUL Gourds that are now ours for us to make our creations for y'all !
But after you go to the gourd farm you still have to clean ALL of the big gourds we brought home . So we decided to fill this little pool we had with water and let the gourds soak in the water so it would be easier to clean all the mold off
Then we sat there with scouring pads and started scouring the gourds clean. Believe me it takes a while to scrub all the mold off of them . For the little bottle and egg gourds I usually (unless it's nice out ) will fill up the kitchen sink and scour them clean, But usually the ornamental gourds are not as moldy at all as the big ones !! YES I sanitize my sinks after I use them for my gourds..
After the cleaning is the cutting and primer ...that's what your looking at in the picture below .
It's Fun to use gourds as our painting canvas but it takes alot to get to that point as you can see. The cleaning and cutting is the hard work of it ALL it is Very time consuming but after all that it is WORTH it to us ! All in all it was a Great Trip, A Beautiful weekend! We were able to get stocked up for another year of hopefully making Unique , Fun , One Of A Kind Birdhouses, Bird feeders and what ever else we decide to come up with .
We hope you enjoyed viewing our trip to Ecklers Farms . Please stop by our Etsy Shop and check out our Creations !
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LINKS
www.etsy.com/shop/inmypaintedgarden
Yes this side of the street is called the Webb School Show.The other side of the street which we were on was called the Maple Street Show and then YES there is another part called the Downtown Show,! Whew... But I'm sorry we never made it to the Downtown Show to take pictures this year , but if you look at last years blog post there are pictures of downtown. We were just to busy this year to do to much walking around.
Most of these pictures were taken as we were walking all around the town. Also these pictures are a combination of the weekend of Saturday and Sunday the two days of the show. It's always a Great show, the 4 years we have done this it has been the kind of weekend you want for a Fall Craft Show with crisp mornings and nice sunny afternoons that just had a touch of warmth ...to warm for a jacket .
On Saturday and Sunday Morning the church on Maple Street puts on a nice breakfast of sausage patties ,scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits, gravy, orange juice ,coffee and milk. The town Boy Scouts are greeting you and putting on a fund raiser of selling Delicious Krispy Cream Donuts......yummy !!
