Birdhouse Gourds

I don't remember the first year that I grew birdhouse gourds.  It has been many years ago.  When we lived in town, we made several into birdhouses by drilling holes in them, removing the seed and hanging them in trees around our yard.  They were very popular with little house wrens.  These small boisterous, noisy birds usually raised at least 2 broods a summer!  The gourds lasted several years with just a light coat of clear lacquer.

It has taken 2 years, but we finally got around to making one to hang here.  Here is a picture of it.

As it turns out, the kind of birds that will take up residence is determined by the size of the hole.  Wrens like holes that are about an inch in diameter. 

There are many kinds of gourds.  The one shown here is called a "dipper" gourd because it was used by the pioneers as a water dipper.  You can visualize how if you made the hole much larger so that it took up all of one side of the gourd then you could use the top part as a handle and use it to dip water with.   Last year, Tom raised some that were called "apple" gourds because they were shaped like apples, although they were a lot bigger than apples.

They also come in all sizes as shown below.

There is a lot of preparation that goes into getting a gourd ready, either for a bird house or to paint.  They have a tough skin that must be removed.  To remove the skin, you need to let them dry.  During the drying process, they normally become moldy.  Don't worry; this is not the kind of mold that you worry about in your house.  The mold that grows on the gourds creates patterns that give each gourd a unique look.  Below, you can see the gourd on the left has white moldy spots.   And, you can see the skin I mentioned coming off the one on the right.

After they have dried, then you soak them in a bucket of water to soften the skin.  Since they are hollow inside, they will float to the top.  So, you must weight them down with a brick or something heavy to keep them underwater.  After the skin is soft, then you scrape it off.  I usually use a dull knife for this.  Then, you let them dry and you will have a gourd that looks like this: