This was a fun one!
After many years of wanting to, we finally grew some of our own birdhouse gourds and dipper gourds this year. I think that growing useful things besides food is a great idea and it can be a lot of fun too. Although we had this idea a bit ago, we finally got around to making our prototype today.
HOW TO MAKE A GOURD SCOOP
For a while now, we've had some dried gourds hanging up waiting for us to do something with them. They've been dried, and are also full of very useful seeds, but we simple hadn't taken the time to do much with them yet.
Unlike the big, round dipper gourds that we bought from Pa Mac and unlike the birdhouse gourds, these ones looked more like big spoons or scoops. Since we often have to scoop animal feed, we thought that we would try making a simple prototype scoop out of one.
The only tool that we used for this project was a utility knife with a sharp razor blade in it. Again, this was a very simple prototype.
By making one horizontal cut along the gourd, basically removing the top in the process, the portion that is left behind should be able to function as a scoop. I had to be really careful with this part.
Here you can see how much was cut off the top. While it wasn't exactly a "perfect" cut, we were aiming for function and not beauty here. Now we just had to remove the seeds and dried membrane on the inside to make it functional. This was a simple job, especially since the gourd was completely dry inside and out.
These seeds are valuable too. We can sell, gift, or barter with them if need be, and we can plant the next generation of gourd plants with them too!
TESTING OUR PROTOTYPE
Soon the @little-peppers were excited to take our new homegrown scoop for a "test drive." We chose the rabbit feed to start with.
The scooping part of it went just fine. Now on to the dumping the scoop out part.
The dumping part worked pretty well too. For the other animals, it is just a matter of getting the feed scooped out, without any narrow target to dump it into. For the rabbits though, the feed troughs have rather narrow and small openings. Ideally, we could use a different cut to make a different shaped scoop out of the gourd for the best results.
It still got the job done, but now we know how to improve on this design. Also, it'll still work for the chicken feed, or for some of the other animals. I'm not sure if any of you have ever enjoyed growing your own utensils or tools, but we really enjoyed it! We will have to see what else we can come up with.
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-gourd-scoop (the proof selfies are harder with this new camera)
Until next time…
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@papa-pepper you're always pulling through with quality material! I love the idea of gourd-spoons. What an exciting dive into compostable cutlery!
Compostable cutlery? Awesome!
Compostable cutlery? Awesome!
Very cool! I cut up an old tree on my property once and went to work trying to make a hotcake spoon like Dick Proenneke. Took me about 6 hours with a hatchet. Looks like you have a much more efficient method here, lol.
Sorry, don't mean to load up your feed it's just when I put the text and the link to the vid in the same reply, it looked like the vid overlapped the text. Weird.
No problem. Thanks!
Wow, that is a whole lot easier than whittling or carving a wooden spoon (which is my preferred method). I will have to give these a try.
Are the seeds edible?
Not sure if they are edible. It was certainly easy!
Wow, very resourceful! I applaud.
Thank you!
Never thought of growing them but now I cannot wait to try. Thank you for your creativity.
WE had a lot of fun with it!
It’s nice to feed the wild animals and birds during the winter time. That’s what we actualy do as well.
Great post!
These were our own animals, but we will use some to create birdhouses for wild animals.
Great idea!
Thanks! They work really well.
hi papa pepper i know this my sound stupid ,but what are those for?
We just used them as a feed scoop. Others are used for birdhouses and such.
Ooh i get it now thanks for your responce
is it some sort of a calabash?
Wow, super simple :) Best wishes to you always.
Very simple, and very practical.
I think we have the plant here in Nigeria,but ours are round and green. Nice one,it is good to be a farmer. I'm a proud one anyway.
It is good to be a farmer! Thanks @emmakwisequote!
Yea,i enjoy it more than anything else in the world.. Hope to see more of your works.
I LIKE IT!
sell em.!
I'd probably buy one (or more) for kitty litter scoopers....
Good use there too!
actually I'm not wanting one so much for a pooper scooper . I think it's be great for applying the 'bulking material' used in a composting toilet though.
Absolutely! Good idea!
amazing idea , very creative .
wanna try at home . thank's for share
Excellent @papa-pepper! I want o make one now but I have big trees and not much sun!
I'm sure that you'll figure something out!
That's pretty cool. I've never grown gourds before. How do they grow ? I believe we're in the same growing zone so I should be able to.
They grew well, and each vine produced about seven fruit with very little care. If you are stateside in about the same zone (we are on the border of 6 and 7) I could send you a variety of seeds. Just get with me on steemit.chat.
Those scoops look neat. Might have to make a few for my horse feed.
That would work!
Great idea! I really like your stuff! Im new, are there any other gardening/homesteaders/diy folks i should follow?
Check with @pennsif.
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@pennsif/homesteaders-and-preppers-on-steemit-visiting-everyone-on-the-list-to-say-hello-and-leave-a-little-gift
That is a running list of many of them.
Very good idea. By utilizing the existing material so that it becomes a useful tool. No need to spend money to buy a tool that we will use in an emergency.
Looks great! I bet you could paint them and sell them. We've been using empty yogurt quart containers, but that is so much more pretty!
I was thinking of woodburning, which could look really nice. We were using old plastic containers too, but these seem better.
i've never actually seen someone cut into one of those. that looks awesomely simple to try! these could make great shovels for the sandbox, and i wonder if they could be used as compostable planters for cacti and succulents.
wonderfully useful as always - thank you!
You are probably right, as a compostable planter they would most likely still last a few years before biodegrading.
and by that time, the plants would need to be moved out of their container anyways!
it's the circle of life
this great pumpkin fruits,
in our place this fruit is often made as a cake ingredient,
cake name timphan if our language.
always successful for you my friend @papa-pepper.
Interesting. Thanks @jasonmunapasee!
your welcome.
danging this pumpkin does not make a friend of food.
this is good at making cake @papa-pepper.
spoon from pumpkin, I just know, pumpkin can be made a spoon, thanks for the information ..
This kind works well for it!
o, we're here just to eat?
good post @papa-pepper pumpkin is very useful for the community, good luck always @papa-pepper.
Thank you @taillah!
same same, @papa-pepper, sorry before my friends, I am very happy if you want to visit my blog, thank you.
Interesting post @ papa-pepper good luck ..
Thank you!
Equally @Papa-pepper you really amazing I salute the same you my friends always follow you, klau you have time friends please support her for my block ..
wow, a very good post @papa-pepper.
Good post my friend. Please upvote me
Thats pretty cool. Never thought of using a gorde for that.
Hey! Cool! I was just checking out your Water Moccasin post in another tab!
wow @papa-pepper . I will remember to do this when we get some chooks of our own. I might even try to do one for a friend that has a few animals to care for are the seeds hard to come by? what season do they grow in ? very curious now.....
The seeds are easy for us to get here in the US, where are you. They grew in just a few months, planted in spring and harvested in the fall.
I live in Australia. Down Under. Is my understanding that Fall is Autumn correct? I would love it if you could send me a couple of seeds. how with quarantine not sure if they would last. Never sent anything over seas before. Hubby is @hamaraxx I am still very new to steemit. Lots of Steem Lavender
Not sure about whether it is legal to send these there or not. Fall is Autumn, you are correct.
do they love full sun or shade?
We went full sun.
Thankyou for all of the info.
thank you
I will try to find some here wish me luck.
Good one....i also want to give it a try ! Keep it up !
your post nice friends, i love it, and do not forget unvote and resteem i have friends ya
What a good idea.... NICE
It's really good and pleasure to achieve something own. Creativity level is high @papa-pepper
Thank you @mindfreezer!
I follwed you man. I am new in this platform. Can i leave a hope to get upvote from you? @papa-pepper
Dope. Organic spoons at that.
That they are!
To be honest, it seems very practical.
I think so!
마지막 사진이 재치있네요^-^ 좋은 정보 감사합니다~
This is too much, lol, but I like it, nice job teaching the kids. learn something new every day!
We enjoyed it, and it was an easy fix!
Easy fix, lol, nice one. bet you thought i wasn't gonna get it huh, lol
genial, ese tipo de calabaza si son comestible mi esposo trabaja en cocina asiática y con ella prepara una rica y nutritiva sopa,claro hay que saberla seleccionar,mucho exitos con tus proyecto.
wow this is my first time in seeing the process..wow it is brilliant.. :)
Thanks! I thought that it would work well!
Woaw !!! Never thought we can use it as a tool, Cool info Your are Super Papa !!
What a great homesteading tip and howto @papa-pepper ! thanks for sharing ! upped and resteemed !😀👍👍👍💕
Great tutorial. The addition of the kiddos taking part warms my heart. Such good lessons of utilizing the land we can pass on to our children. Scoop on fellow steemian!
Interesting idea, @papa-pepper! I so love your kids, they are good helpers to you). In our country, the same pumpkin is grown, we use it more for decorative decoration. And we also grow edible varieties of pumpkin to obtain seeds, and from the pulp cook a sweet dish with milk and croup. And we also feed livestock.
I bet you can be a jungle survival instructor for soldiers, sir.
This is an awsome idea! Really much appreciated! Will try this as soon as our neigbours squashes are dry and hard.
interesting @ papa-pepper, in this life the ideas are very important to create, thanks to our human mind and intelligence we can optimize any raw material and build useful objects.
These gourd spoons could have a lot of uses. I don't think they would be much good if they get soaked in liquid or I am wrong?
This makes me excited to grow gourds to use as tools and containers! Nice!