Gourds
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Wikipedia-Article "Gourds"
- This article refers to the dried fruit shell. For the alternative country musical group of a similar name, see The Gourds.
A gourd is a hollow, dried shell of a fruit in the Cucurbitaceae family of plants. Gourds can be used as a number of things, including bowls or bottles. Gourds are also used as resonating chambers on certain musical instruments including some stringed instruments and drums. Instruments of this type are common in Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Gourds are also used as a tool for sipping yerba mate by means of a bombilla, in Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where it is called "cuia" (kOOya). Birdhouse gourds, (Lagenaria siceraria), are commonly used in southern USA for group housing for purple martins, which reputedly help control mosquitoes.
Day-blooming gourds are pollinated the same as squash, and commercial plantings should have bee hives supplied. Night blooming gourds are pollinated by moths, which are normally present in adequate supply unless they are drawn off by night lights in the area.
Gourds were originally used by man as containers or vessels before clay or stone pottery, and is sometimes referred to as "nature's pottery". The original and evolutional shape of clay pottery is thought to have been modeled on the shape of certain gourd varieties.
In addition to utilitarian uses, gourds have been assigned various other functions throughout history in various cultures. Very early specimens of gourd shells discovered (for example, in Peru) indicate the use of gourds as means of recording events of the time.
Generally, gourds are used more for utilitarian uses than for food. Only a few varieties are actually harvested for consumption, mostly in Asia. The shell of the gourd, when dried, has a wooden appearance. Gourd "wood" is essentially cellulose that has no grain, varying in thickness from paper-thin to well over an inch. Drying gourds, which takes months in some cases, causes the internal contents (seeds and fruit matter) to dry out completely, although seeds are often still capable of germination. For the uninitiated, cutting open a dried gourd (which can be done with a craft knife or miniature jig-saw) can present hazards; the resulting dust is extremely fine and can cause respiratory problems, requiring adequate protection. A bitter taste or smell is typically evident when opening a gourd that has not completely dried out inside.
The harder outer surface lends the gourd to a wide variety of creative appeals, including carving, pyrography, sculpture, basketry, masks, musical instruments, and much more. A steadily growing following has emerged in the United States and other Western countries for the use of gourds for artistic and craft-related purposes. There is a steadily increasing list of books specific to this subject.
Gourd crafting (or gourding as it is often referred) is supported by festivals and art/craft events in practically every U.S. state, Canadian province, in Australia and elsewhere. The oldest running U.S. Gourd Festival is held in North Carolina; the 2005 event will be the 64th Annual event, held in Raleigh. Finely crafted gourd art pieces can fetch considerable prices, often into the high hundreds and more. A gourd artpiece created by a California gourd artist on commission was valued at USD$20,000 in 2003; the piece was inlayed with precious and semi-precious stones.
There are several farms throughout the U.S. that cater to gourds. The Welburn Gourd Farm, for example, located near Fallbrook, California, harvests hundreds of thousands of gourds annually from its 80+ acres, and ships them to all corners of the globe.