CLEANING A GREEN GOURD:

There is a serious advantage to green cleaning a gourd, it will leave a light colored shell, that is even in color all the way around. This is really an advantage to those who like Pyrography or colored pencils, and the gourds look absolutely beautiful.

Before picking a green gourd to clean, make sure the vine has died off, and the stem to the gourd is fully dry, or you may risk loosing the gourd. Also, gourds that are not fully mature, and are not rock hard, will shrivel, but they will likely shrivel regardless which method you try.

This is a process we have used for over 10 years on smaller gourds, really large gourds have a tendency to shrivel, pucker, or crack, so we do not recommend this method on large gourds. Our primary use for this process is bottle gourds or round gourds up to 3 pounds in weight. We have tried some gourds like dipper type gourds, or gourds with long thin handles, and the handles have caved in and cracked, so we suggest you experiment with one gourd at a time, until you know what works for you, and what doesn’t..

GREEN CLEANING a green gourd is not hard, but somewhat tedious. You can use the back side of a table knife, or if you are careful, I like using my sharp pocket knife, and actually shave the skin off the gourd by holding the blade a little less than 45 degree’s. You simply shave or scrape the skin off the gourd, if you are using the table knife, you don’t have to worry much about damaging the shell, if the gourd is mature, you really can’t hurt it. You do have to be careful though, and be sure to remove as much of the skin as possible, having a flat blade on a curved surface will likely leave lines of very thin layers of skin.