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.

Currently reading:

Instrument Designs (some sketches)

While planting, I thought my main crop would be Bilobal gourds. My main interest is making Shekeres. But only a couple bilobals survived. These gourds are great for shekeres because the second, smaller lobe can be cut off and a nice cone-shaped sound hole is left to amplify the sound- similar to the sound hole of a guitar or a trumpet.

Here is a Bilobal Gourd:

And here is a basic Shekere Design:

The other problem is that I have a ton of Dipper gourds. They only have one lobe and an awkward shape. Nice for filling with beans to make a rattle, but not much else because there is no second lobe for a cone-shaped sound hole. So I designed my adaptation of a guiro with the main lobe cut of and carved notches going up the dipper handle (to be played with a stick). My hope is that it might be even louder than a traditional guiro or at least have a unique sound.

Here is a basic Dipper Gourd:

Here is my adaptation of a Guiro:

October

I've thinned out some dead leaves (dead leaves that cover tops of gourds encourage bugs and rot) and took this picture. It's like those Highlights magazine Dr. Riggs, my orthodontist, had in his office: "See how many gourds you can count!"

There will be more to post on soon. Job's tears harvest, etc.