A gourd is a member of the cucumber and squash family, but you won't be cooking with gourds any time soon. Depending on the variety of gourd and the growing season, a gourd can range from palm-sized to larger than a basketball. After picking the gourds in the fall, Crowder must let them dry out over the winter before they are ready to use.

"They're green when you pick them," Crowder said. "It's pretty much a year between the time you plant and the time you're ready to use them."

The drying process turns the gourds as hard as wood. At first, Crowder attempted to cut open the gourds with a steak knife and a hack saw. Now, she uses power tools.

"It is wood," she said. "You can wood-burn it, stain it. You can use spray paint or varnish. Anything you can use on wood, you can use on a gourd."

At Crowder's house, a pile of painted gourds filled the coffee table. Some had been painted and converted into bird houses, while others had been cut into baskets. The gourds were painted, stained and even topped with woven pine needles.

"There are gourds all over the house," she said. "The kids do get a little sick of that.

"With gourds, no two are exactly alike," Crowder said. A gourd's shape, she said, often dictates what kind of design Crowder will pursue, she said. "You kind of look at them and figure out what he wants to be," she said. "I've heard people say the gourds tell them what they want to be -- but I haven't had a gourd speak to me."

Crowder sells gourds at the Yankee Peddler store in Perry County, Ind., and occasionally takes gourds to area festivals. "I've got a basket in New Jersey and a gourd basket in Alabama," she said. "Both of those I sold over the Internet."

For the most part, Crowder said she prefers to have gourds ready-made, rather than take orders from customers.

"If I had an order for 30 bowls, it would get a little old before I got done," Crowder said. "I never know what I'm going to do," she said. "I don't get bored. There are so many different things I want to try."

A single piece can take hours, Crowder said.

"I don't make $10 an hour" for every hour spent working on a gourd, she said. "On a lot of them, I'm lucky to make $1 an hour." Crowder teaches classes on gourd-art, and even posts tips on gourd crafting on her Web site, http://communities.msn.com/thebasketfarm

"I spend most of my time at shows just talking to people," she said. "People are amazed by the gourds. It's something they don't see around every corner."

Crowder said despite the hard work, she enjoys creating artwork from gourds.

"Art-wise, gourds are unlimited," she said. "You can pretty much do anything you want with them. Whatever your imagination can come up with, you can do."

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Pam Crowder

Residence: Pellville, Hancock County

Occupation: Basket and gourd artist

Quote: "I've heard people say the gourds tell them what they want to be -- but I haven't had a gourd speak to me."

http://www.messenger-inquirer.com/news/kentucky/4437364.htm 

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Officials visit worm, gourd farms on agriculture field day

Two projects among ideas for farm diversification

09/11/02

http://www.ca.uky.edu/AGC/NEWS/2002/Sep/worms.htm

By James Mayse
Messenger-Inquirer

State officials and area farmers trekked across Hancock County on Tuesday morning to visit some of the county's unique farm experiments.

The visits were part of the Hancock County Extension Service's annual agriculture field day. Diane Perkins, the extension service's agriculture agent, said the tour is a way to introduce farmers to new enterprises.

"For the last couple of years, we thought seeing more diversification on farming might help the agriculture community here," Perkins said. "This shows some different kinds of agriculture, just in case people are interested in going from traditional to nontraditional types of agriculture."

The group included area farmers, agriculture officials from the University of Kentucky and officials from the Governor's Office for Agricultural Policy. The first stop on the tour was Paul McBride's worm farm near Pellville. McBride, who grows worms on contract for B&B Worms, started his operation in May 2001.

At McBride's worm storage barn, large plastic boxes were lined up in rows. In many boxes, about 18 inches of compost covered the floor, with a bit of worm meal sprinkled on top. There wasn't a worm to be seen.

But, when McBride's son, Jerry McBride, turned over some manure with a pitchfork, hundreds of squiggling, squirming worms were uncovered.

Yucky though worms might be, these worms have a legitimate environmental purpose. B&B ships the worms both nationally and internationally to be used in environmental cleanup, McBride said. Shipments of worms have been used in cleanup operations in Switzerland, Egypt and Africa.

At first glance, worm farming sounds easy -- just sprinkle in some compost and worm feed and let the worms do the rest. But Paul McBride said it's more work than many people expect.

"To get them to grow, you have to keep the temperature right in your building," McBride said. "Eighty degrees seems the right degree for them.

"This is a whole lot like dairy farming," he said. "It's seven days a week, and once you get them to produce, it's twice a day. It's like everything else: Worm farming is not for everybody."

Pam Crowder holds a large gourd that is still growing on her farm near Pellville during a tour that was part of the annual agriculture field day in Hancock County. Using the Internet, Crowder sells the dried gourds to clients all over the world. Area farmers and agriculture officials offered the tours as a way to pass along information about alternative kinds of agriculture. Photo by Gary Emord-Netzley, M-I

Under McBride's contract, he sells worms to the company for $9 a pound. It takes about 1,000 worms to make one pound, he said.

"My goal when I started was to get enough where I could harvest every week and harvest 1,000 pounds a week," Paul McBride said. "They are finding things they can use worms for that have never been thought of before. There are some people who even eat them -- although I'm not interested in them."

Later, the group traveled to Pam Crowder's gourd farm. Crowder, who has a large field of gourds growing near the family home, paints gourds and sells them at local festivals and over the Internet.

"We sell gourds all over the U.S. and internationally," Crowder said. "The farthest we've shipped is Tokyo, Japan."

After the gourds are picked, they are set aside for several months to dry. After drying, the gourds are as hard as wood and can be painted and carved.

"If you can do it with wood, you can do it with a gourd," she said. "They are wood."

This year, Crowder received funding from the state's agricultural diversification fund to expand her gourd operation. "It's enabled us to go a little bit further than we would have" otherwise, she said.

The gourds are high-maintenance -- in addition to being dried, gourds must be scrubbed clean by hand and cannot have any blemishes.

"(Buyers) want a perfect gourd, and you don't find a lot of perfect in nature," Crowder said. "People are willing to pay a couple extra dollars more for a gourd that is scrubbed. We're on a shoestring budget, so we scrub."