Cleaning gourds can be a dirty time consuming process. Stuck on gourd skin, mold, and dirt are likely covering your gourd making it look like something out of the compost rather than a canvas for your next art and craft project. Having cleaned hundreds of gourds through the years here is a list of my quick tips to help make cleaning your gourds as easy as possible
1. Cleaning Gourds is Messy – Plan for the Mess
Unwashed gourds have gourd skin, dirt, and mold on them making cleaning them messy work. It takes elbow grease to get it off so you should expect to get your hands dirty. If possible, I recommend setting up a gourd cleaning station outside. When this is not possible you should use a bin filled with water that you can dump outside or in the toilet instead of using a skin. The water after cleaning gourds gets filled with lots of organic matter that you do not want all over your house or down the drain. I have clogged my drain from cleaning lots of gourds in my laundry sink. Don’t repeat my mistake.
2. Clean all your Gourds at Once
Since cleaning gourds is such a process with lots of set up and clean up, I recommend that you clean all your gourds at once. Cleaning lots of gourds at one time reduces the total amount of work since you only have to set up and clean up once and reduces wait time because you can scrub one gourd as the others soak.
3. A little Patience Soaking Gourds Saves a lot of Work
This is my number one tip to reduce the work involved in cleaning gourds. Soaking gourds is essential to making it easier to clean them. The dirt and gourd skin loosens considerably after a good soak making it possible to remove them with a lot less scrubbing.
Since gourds float I use a wet towel to place over the gourd so that the whole gourd is soaking. I also make sure to move them around and re soak the towel periodically so that they are getting as wet as possible on all sides.
The length of time the gourds need to soak will depend on how the gourd but I start with about ten minutes, give the gourd a lite scrubbing and let it sit for another ten minutes. I find by this process of rotating between soaking and lite scrubbing a few times before giving it a good final scrubbing helps loosen the skin making the whole process easier.
4. Use the Right Tools to Scrub the Gourd
I like to have a variety of tools to help with scrubbing the gourds. I make sure I have a washcloth, a sponge, and a plastic spoon and/or plastic putty knife for scraping stuck on skin. Most of the gourd skin and dirt will come off quite easily with a few rounds of soaking and soft scrubbing from the sponge. Any remaining hard to get off bits can be scraped off with the plastic spoon and/or plastic putty knife. The gourd is pretty strong but be cautious about using tools that will scratch the gourd’s surface. If some small scratches do occur they can later be sanded off.
5. Accept Gourd’s Natural Imperfections
Gourds are a natural item and sometimes can not be cleaned to a smooth, blemish free surface. Some molds that may have grown on the gourd, mainly black molds, may permanently stain the gourds surface, some gourds end up with scars that cannot be wash away, and sometimes gourd skin sticks so hard to the gourd that scraping it off is not practical. Some of these imperfections can be addressed by sanding them after the gourd has dried and others can be incorporated into the final project.
6. Sanitize Your Gourds
After I have scrubbed my gourds clean it is time for them to take a second bath in a disinfectant to kill any mold spores still on the gourd. This is an important step to ensure that the gourds are safe and also to make sure mold doesn’t continue to grow on the gourd after you have finished your art.
I use a bleach at a ratio of 1 part bleach to 10 parts water. If you don’t like using bleach, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, or peroxide can be used instead.
7. Let Them Dry Thoroughly
When gourds are well soaked they absorb the water. They should be allowed to throughly dry so that mold is not encouraged to grow on the gourds again. Leaving gourds outside in the sun is the best way to do this but leaving them near a vent or fan will work as well if outdoor drying is not available. Give the gourds a solid 24 hours in a well ventilated area before you consider them dry and start a project or move them to storage.