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For a bird, a house is a safe place to roost and raise its young. It is a safe place from predators and icy winters. But to you, it’s a chance to create something beautiful. Something that will inspire you every time you look at it. To hang the gourd, I made two small holes on the top of the gourd, on either side of the stem. Even experienced and horticulturists sometimes don’t always follow directions.
South Austin lot has become purple martin sanctuary - Austin American-Statesman
South Austin lot has become purple martin sanctuary.
Posted: Sat, 01 Sep 2012 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Luffa Fruit Turning Brown
I made our doors just a little shy of the middle closer to the bottom so rain wouldn’t pour in the holes. The kids really enjoyed that part of our project. We shook them into a bucket so we could try to grow them again. We have found birdhouse gourds to be very easy to care for. Ours have never experienced any serious pest or disease.
Unfinished Apple Gourd Birdhouse
I usually make a hole 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches in diameter but this is really a personal choice. Different birds have different preferences so if you hope to attract a certain bird you will need to make the hole the appropriate size. Some birds even like two holes and others like to have a perch. If your luffa plant has already started forming fruits, turn your plant's energy into growing those fruits and pinch away new buds. You can start luffa as seedlings indoors in pots.
Purple Martin Gourd House Maintenance
You have no option but to go with the paint’s foggy quality and elevated stencil. The approach is simple and enjoyable and lets you exercise your creative muscles. I use natural shoe polish to preserve my gourd art. It is not UV resistant but enables my gourd shell to contract and expand without splitting the finish. When combined with paints or alcohol inks, you get lovely effects. They roll around when burning, making you chase them.
Dipper Gourd Birdhouse
However, if you live in the hills, or adjacent to large swaths of open space (places like Palos Verdes, Malibu, San Gabriels, etc.), your prospects are much better. A simple bird house for wrens (here's an easy one to build) can attract Bewick's Wrens, House Wrens, and who knows what else. Just be sure to maintain the house in the proper manner. Don’t worry if you don’t get all of the insides removed. The first occupants of the birdhouse will remove anything they don’t want from the gourd, that’s for sure. While gourds can technically grow anywhere, they really do best in areas with warm weather.
Indoor Gardening
They will eventually need to be transplanted outdoors and require a trellis or other support for growing their large, pendulous fruits. Luffa plants are cold-sensitive, so harden them appropriately and only bring them outdoors when the temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Gourd birdhouses will last up to 10 years without any special care, but often times the finish on the gourd will wear off. To prolong the life of your birdhouse, it should only be hung outside during nesting season.
Owl Birdhouse Gourd Art for Your Garden
You can attempt to increase female flower production by adding phosphorus-enriched fertilizer, or if bees are not reaching your flowers, hand pollinate the flowers. Because of its long growing season and warm temperature requirements, luffa is best seeded directly in your garden. Starting the seeds indoors requires four to six weeks in a greenhouse-like setting at about 65 to 70 degrees F with full sunlight. All of my birdhouse holes are a standard 1.5” round.
Grow Your Own Birdhouses with These Decorative Gourds
Or, you may find yourself with a gourd that has hard clumps of seeds and thick, peeling inner walls. Either way, use the chopstick to scrape and break up as much of the material in the gourd as you can, shaking out seeds and bits as you go. Other options for cleaning tools are a long metal spoon, screwdriver or a wire coat hanger. A long-handled tweezers or needle-nosed pliers can be very handy to pull out large pieces of peelings and clumps of seeds. Remember, what's left inside will be taken care of by the first residents of your birdhouse.
You can also varnish the outside of the gourds before you hang them up, but they’ll last outdoors about two years if you decide not to. During the curing process, the gourds could go from pale ivories, rusts, beiges or mottled gray colors; each one will be unique. Bottles that are fully dry or cured will be light-weight (nothing like when you first harvested them), light brown and hard. The seeds inside will rattle when you give the bottle a shake. At this point aside from the entry holes, you’ll be drilling a few others, as well. Gourd birdhouses are attractive to many species of birds including wrens, chickadees, swallows, bluebirds, titmice, and nuthatches.
Since then, I’ve attended workshops teaching various gourd crafts and took a carving class in 2018. Here comes the question — are these gourds edible? Well, sure, birdhouse gourds are technically edible, however they have fibrous flesh that is bitter in flavor. If you choose to eat gourds, harvest fruits when they are immature and still green. Drying birdhouse gourds is quite easy and really comes down to having a well-ventilated space where the gourds can be spread out to dry. At the farm where I have large open spaces to work with, we plant the seeds in rows about 6 inches (15 cm) apart and allow the vines to wander as they like.
Now your kids can join the fun too and express themselves. The artwork that transformed a simple apple gourd into a great birdhouse will inspire them. It’s quite an adorable home for birds, which can be ornamental or functional.
At the first sign of this problem, cut out infected leaves. And dispose of them somewhere other than your compost heap. Second, don’t be surprised if not all the seeds germinate. In our experience birdhouse gourds seeds have a lower germination rate than other squash type plants.
Birdhouse gourds are one of the heirloom seeds offered by Strawbery Banke Museum through our free seed for education program. You can enlighten your guests’ moods when they visit your home by decorating your birdhouse to look like an ice cream cone. Nothing takes the place of a scoop of ice cream on a hot summer day. I love it because it resembles my irresistible favorite treat.
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