Gourden Completely Cleared

Just a few gourds remaining on the canopy wire tor cure while they are still attached. All plants have been cut/pulled from the ground.

Job's Tears: partial harvest

Up until now, every Job's Tear I picked would look fine for a while, but then shrivel and turn white and feel like paper. I wasn't sure what I was doing wrong. But now, some tears are suddenly looking different while still on the plant. The are brightly colored (instead of just green), have a noticeable sheen, and are hard-shelled. They also separate from the stem with ease. Now I'm only picking ones that look like this while still on the vine:

Notice the blues, grays, greens, and browns.
Still too few to bead anything with.

These are ones that didn't make it. Not a good ratio.

Gourden Update: Last Stages

Here is how my gourden looks now. It's not long until this gourden will be done and I'll move on to the process of curing and prepping the gourds to be crafted. I've thinned the dead leaves and ones infested with aphids/ants. Most gourds have been harvested. There are about 8 left on the vine because they're still attached to a live vine, they are still very dark green, they are still heavy. This all means they have not begun to cure/dry out and it's best if the can do as much curing while still on the vine as possible. If they were being grown on sandy, dry soil I would let them cure completely on the vine, but because they are suspended from a canopy style gourden and we are in a wet, cold climate the gourds will either fall off or rot if they ae not taken off the vine to finish curing.
I've actually planted winter peas and transplanted kale in the barrels in anticipation of the vines being gone and the need for an alternate off-season crop. The job's tears in these barrels are still there, but have not produced viable fruit. Another jobs tear plant in a pot on the patio has produced only 3 or 4 good tears.

Luffa or Butternut?

The fruit I thought were luffa gourds turned out to just be butternut squash. Not sure how the seeds got in there. I like how Lil's hair is the same color as the butternuts.

Casualties

I've harvested a number of gourds whose tops started to rot, whose stems dried out and seemed brittle, or they just looked like it was there time. Those gourds are safe and curing in my garage and looking good. But not all the gourds have made it....

Here are two gourds that just fell from my canopy gourden and split open:

I plan to attempt to dry and cure them and cut the skin into medallions I can use in a certain kind of shaker I'd like to make.

To prevent this from happening again, I bunched some of my remaining gourds
(by looping some of the vines over the canopy wires)
and put a basket underneath:

Here are some more casualties that shriveled on the vine:

I harvested them and will try to cure them to be used as medallions also.

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