How to process a pumpkin so that it does not deteriorate. Preparation secrets: dried pumpkin

December 1st, 2013 07:41 am

Author - marina5822014 . This is a quote from this post.

And here is how to dry a pumpkin for crafts.

Pumpkin dishes

Cheri Long

They have been breeding gourds (ware or bottle gourds) for a long time: young pumpkins are eaten, and mature ones are dried, processed and made from them into light and durable vessels for liquids, other kitchen utensils, houses and feeders for birds, Christmas tree decorations - and this is far from a complete list of necessary and useful things that you can do with your own hands from a pumpkin grown in your garden.

There are several varieties of hard-shelled gourds, and many gardeners are probably familiar with the bright, small fruits of ornamental gourds, but we want to introduce you to gourd or lagenaria, the fruits of which, when dried, have an unusually strong brown rind.

How to grow gourd

The common gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) is a strong annual plant of the gourd family, a climber with a climbing or creeping stem up to 15 meters long, so if you have little space on your site, we advise you to direct the whips along the path or driveway, or even better - run them on a fence, trellis or tree trunk. This is especially important for the correct formation of the fruits of the Dipper variety, which means "ladle" in translation. In order for the "handle" to grow long and even, the fruits must hang freely. The fruits of gourd gourd ripen for quite a long time, so it is preferable to breed it in the southern regions, where the summer is long and hot. Just plant the seeds in the spring in the ground to a depth of 2.5 cm, immediately after the last frost. However, subject to certain rules, gourd can be successfully grown in the north. So, we offer ten tips for growing gourds in the northern latitudes:

Attention! Frost will not damage the fruits themselves, but frost is fatal to seeds. So if you want to save the seeds, dry the pumpkins indoors!

How to clean and process fruits

When the pumpkins are completely dry, they will become very light and, if you shake them, you can hear the seeds rattling inside. Now it's time to start cleaning. Let's start by removing the dried outer skin. Soak the fruit in water for an hour, the authors of the Encyclopedia of Pumpkin Crafts (Lark Books, 1996) advise, then place the pumpkins in a plastic bag or wrap them in an old damp towel and leave in the sun for several hours. After that, remove the softened skin with a copper washcloth for washing dishes. Sandpaper should not be used - it will scratch the smooth surface of the crust. After removing the skin, rinse the pumpkin and let it dry.

Now you need to decide what exactly you will do from the pumpkin. I will share my experience. From the Bushel pumpkin in just an hour, I created a simple but rather elegant vase with a lid (if you like, a tureen). I sawed the top with a jigsaw - the lid is ready, covered the outside with linseed oil - that's all! A pumpkin can be processed like a tree: sawed with a saw, cut with a chisel, drilled with a drill, filed, burned, sawed with a jigsaw, cut (both manually and with an electric tool), and then stained, painted, covered with drying oil, varnish and so on.

Attention! When you open the pumpkin (to take out the seeds and dried pulp), be sure to pour water into it, and then pour it out - so that the caustic dust does not hit your nose!

A variety of decorative pumpkins does not leave gardeners indifferent - original creepers with many bright small fruits adorn our fences, arches, arbors. However, with the advent of cold weather, a logical question arises: what to do now with this beauty? Ornamental pumpkins, for the most part, are not suitable for food. It's a pity to feed livestock. There is only one, and the most correct, option - to use decorative pumpkins for decoration.

However, just taking and putting a pumpkin in the kitchen is not interesting. And yes, it probably won't last long. The pumpkin must first be prepared, or rather, dried. And ONLY from a pumpkin dried from the inside, you can make containers for storing drinks, cereals, all kinds of bowls, plates, lamps, vases and other unique, functional and not very, interior items. And how to dry a pumpkin for decoration? This is what our today's article will be about.

Which pumpkin to take?

When we say that for interior decoration you need to take a decorative pumpkin, we are talking not so much about the requirements for external beauty, but about the size. From our article about you learned that these pumpkins are not large - on average from 100 to 500 grams. Some varieties of ordinary pumpkins - meaning - also grow small, and they can also be taken for drying. But it is better to leave pumpkins that are too large for kitchen experiments - the thick pulp will not be able to fully dry, and the fruit will rot.

Before, how to dry a pumpkin, you need to decide whether it is a regular pumpkin or lagenaria. If hard-barked, nutmeg, large-fruited pumpkins (we combine them under the word “ordinary”) belong to the same genus, then lagenaria is already another genus of the Pumpkin family. It is lagenaria that is grown more often than other pumpkins for the purpose of further manufacturing handicrafts, vessels, vases, etc.

The key differences between lagenaria and ordinary gourds are the thickness of the bark, and hence the speed of drying. If drying an ordinary pumpkin takes from two months to ± six months, then lagenaria will dry for at least a year.

All healthy and ripe fruits are suitable for drying. If the frosts have already struck, and your pumpkins have not had time to ripen, you should not take them for crafts. If you remove them unripe, with an insufficiently dense crust, they are very likely to rot soon, as they are not sushi. Ideally, the fruit should be on the whip until it dries out and turns brown. And, of course, all pumpkins for further use must be intact - without damage to the skin, rot.

Decorative pumpkin: how to dry?

People often wonder How to quickly dry a pumpkin? But no way! There are processes in nature that cannot be accelerated. Until the moisture comes out of the pumpkin in a natural way - through the pores on the fruit and the stalk - you can’t lure it out in other ways. On the net you can find options for drying pumpkins for decor in the oven, microwave, air grill ... But this will already be a baked pumpkin. Better eat it. Such a pumpkin will not last long.

Do not dry your craft pumpkin in the microwave - the result may not be impressive

Thus, the only possible option for drying a decorative gourd for crafts is to leave it alone. More is not required of you. But in the right place.

Where to dry pumpkin for crafts?

- Right on the vine. This is the best natural way. A healthy, ripe fruit is not afraid of frost, rain and other vagaries of nature. Moreover - for drying a pumpkin, in addition to time, one more factor is needed - air, air movement, ventilation. Not light, not heat, but fresh, not stale air. Therefore, if possible, dry the pumpkin directly on the plant. You will know that the fruit has completely dried up from the inside by the changed color of the skin (in lagenaria it will turn from green to brown or brown-yellow, in ordinary pumpkins it will fade slightly, but may remain the same), light weight, as well as by the sound of seeds, deaf "jumping" inside the fetus when shaking. From such a pumpkin, you can already cut, paint, varnish whatever your heart desires, after cutting off the neck and taking out the seeds.

Zucchini-wryneck will dry perfectly right on the fence

- On open air . If you are afraid that in your absence the decorative beauties of pumpkins will be stolen from the liana, you can cut them off and dry them in the open air. Before, how to dry a pumpkin for crafts, cut it off with a tail about 5 cm long. Just cut it off, and do not tear it off, because moisture will evaporate much worse through the “torn” hole, and the pumpkin will dry longer. It is also impossible to leave a pumpkin to dry without a tail at all - there is a high probability of rot occurring precisely at the site of the stalk, since pumpkin juice will actively stand out from it. Cut pumpkins are placed on wooden pallets, or better, hung. Fruits should not touch each other. Be aware that some varieties of pumpkins emit an odor during drying. Unpleasant. Therefore, a site for drying pumpkins, even outdoors, choose away from places where there are people. A ripe pumpkin is recognized in the same way as in the previous method.

-At home . Well, if circumstances allow you to dry the pumpkin in the open air. But in the lion's share of cases, the fruits have to be carried home to dry. How to dry a whole pumpkin at home, given that it needs air? Perhaps only on the balcony, loggia. You can leave pumpkins for the winter in an unheated summer cottage. Cellars, cellars, warm kitchens, closets - all this is not suitable for drying pumpkins. They will rot a lot and dry slowly.

What else needs to be considered when drying pumpkins for decoration?

No matter how good your pumpkins are, the minimum percentage of rejection during drying will still be (5-10 percent). This is fine. Unripe pumpkins rot the most. To prevent rot from spreading to healthy fruits, inspect them from time to time. If you notice a speck that is pressed in when pressed with a finger - this is rot, immediately throw away such a pumpkin. But don't confuse rot with mold.. Mold appears on the pumpkin skin due to moisture released by the vegetable during drying. As a result, when the pumpkin dries, you will get an unusual pattern. You can try to wipe off the mold, but over time it will show up again.

For safety net, you can process pumpkins before laying them for drying. This is especially true if you are not sure that the pumpkins are ripe. So, the fruits are carefully washed, slightly dried and wiped with alcohol or some alcohol-containing mixture. This will disinfect the skin and make the possibility of rot less likely.

Before drying a decorative pumpkin on a balcony or in another room, place an oilcloth under it - during drying time it will start to "flow".

If you need a pumpkin craft urgently

Young mothers and fathers often have to help make crafts for their children. And these crafts are set not for the next year, but for the next week. It often happens that there is a cute pumpkin, but ... If you cut something out of it, then the flesh will quickly rot, stink, and the midges ...

There is an exit! Of course, fully drying a pumpkin for crafts entirely will not work, but your creation will live for a couple of weeks. So, take a pumpkin, wash, dry, cut off the top of the fruit, take out the pulp with seeds. Next, be sure to wipe the pumpkin inside and out with a cloth soaked in alcohol and stuff it with newsprint. Put the pumpkin in a warm place and change newspapers regularly as they get wet. In two or three days, the pumpkin will be suitable for making carriages, Halloween masks and other beautiful bright things.

Crafts from "dried" pumpkin
If the pumpkin for decoration is not dried, in about a week it will turn into this

We hope our article helped you learn how to dry a decorative gourd for crafts. Finally, we offer you a video on making a beautiful vessel from already dried lagenaria. Strong pumpkins and unbridled inspiration to you!

Tatyana Kuzmenko, member of the editorial board of the Sobcorrespondent of the online publication "AtmAgro. Agroindustrial Bulletin"

Dried pumpkin is a wonderfully tasty and very healthy product. Of all types of winter preparations, it is drying that allows you to save almost the entire vitamin and mineral composition of vegetables. At home, you can dry an orange vegetable in a conventional oven or a special electric dryer.

In winter, dried pumpkin slices can be eaten as a sweet treat or used in various dishes. Dried pumpkin can be used in salads, soups, appetizers, meat casseroles, fish and vegetables. Pounded dried pumpkin powder is added to homemade baked goods to improve their taste and appearance.

Dried Pumpkin - General Cooking Principles

All varieties of pumpkins are suitable for drying, but it is better to take autumn ones with a thick skin. They dry faster and are very tasty.

The fruit must be whole, fully ripe, without spots or signs of deterioration. Wash it well, cut it into pieces, clean out the pulp and seeds. Then cut off the peel and chop the flesh. How exactly? It all depends on the particular dish.

The options are:

Thin plates (for chips);

Narrow strips 5 mm thick (for soups, salads, vegetable and meat dishes);

Small cubes (for sweet candied fruits).

To prepare pumpkin flour, dried plates or strips must be crushed in a mortar or scroll in a meat grinder with a fine grate.

Pumpkin slices can be processed in two different ways before drying. The first is blanching. Prepared slices are kept in boiling water for two minutes. Blanching will keep the dried pumpkin vibrant in color.

To protect the workpiece from pests and spoilage, pieces of pumpkin can be treated with saline before drying.

For drying pumpkins at home, an electric or gas oven, a special dryer, and an air grill are suitable. Drying time and temperature are selected depending on the type of appliance, the thickness of the pieces and even the variety of pumpkin. Average temperatures are from 50° to 85°. Ready dried pumpkin does not stick to fingers, although it retains elasticity.

Dried pumpkin in the oven

To make the dried pumpkin in the oven tasty and beautiful, before laying it in the oven, it must be wrapped in boiling water, that is, blanched. Drying lasts approximately 8 hours, which must be taken into account when planning your day.

Ingredients:

A piece of pumpkin weighing 1.5-2 kilograms;

2 liters of water;

A teaspoon of salt.

Cooking method:

Wash a piece of pumpkin thoroughly and dry it on a paper towel.

With a sharp knife, cut off the peel, cut out the pulp, remove the seeds.

Cut the pumpkin into equal even strips no more than a centimeter thick.

Prepare a bowl of ice water.

Boil water in a saucepan, season with salt.

Blanch pumpkin slices in boiling water for one to two minutes.

Remove with a slotted spoon and immediately dip in ice water for two minutes.

Place in a colander to drain all the water.

Preheat the oven to a temperature of 55° to 65°.

Lay the pumpkin slices on a baking sheet in a single layer so that they do not touch each other.

Send the sheet to the oven for five hours. Open the door a little so that the evaporating moisture has an outlet.

Raise the temperature in the oven to 80-85 ° and dry the pumpkin for two to three hours.

Allow the dried pumpkin to cool, arrange in linen bags or glass jars and put away for storage.

Pumpkin dried in an electric dryer

The technology for preparing pumpkin slices for drying in a special dryer is the same as for drying in an oven. It is better to cut the pumpkin into small cubes - they will dry better.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin weighing 2-3 kilograms;

3 liters of water;

Tablespoon of salt.

Cooking method:

Wash the pumpkin, cut into several pieces, remove the fibers and seeds, peel.

Cut each piece first into thin slices, then into small cubes. It is important that they have the same size, but after drying they do not fall into the holes of the grate.

Blanch the pumpkin pieces in salted boiling water as described above. Cool in cold water, pat dry.

Arrange the pumpkin slices on the grid so that they do not touch.

Set the average temperature (relative to the power of the device) and dry until cooked. At a temperature of 90 ° with a ventilation mode, drying will take 4-5 hours. At lower temperatures (50-60°) it will take approximately 12 hours.

The finished pumpkin pieces will decrease in size by about half.

Pumpkin dried in an electric dryer in cubes resembles candied fruits, it turns out elastic and very tasty.

Dried pumpkin: sesame chips

Slightly salty thin slices of dried pumpkin are a great substitute for potato chips. For such pumpkin chips, dense varieties of pumpkins with unsweetened pulp are suitable. We will cook them in an electric dryer.

Ingredients:

A piece of pumpkin weighing two kilograms;

A tablespoon of spices to taste (paprika, black pepper, cumin, coriander, etc.);

a tablespoon of salt;

a tablespoon of sesame;

Two liters of water.

Cooking method:

Peel the pumpkin and cut into thin slices-medallions no more than three millimeters thick.

Boil water, salt it and throw pumpkin slices into boiling water for a minute.

Immediately plunge the blanched pumpkin into cold water. After a minute, remove and spread on a towel or put in a colander.

Slightly damp, fresh pieces of pumpkin spread on the grate of an electric dryer, season to taste with spices, sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Turn on the device and dry the chips for about six hours at a temperature of 60 °.

Dry for another two hours at a temperature of 80 °.

Ready-made pieces of pumpkin dried in an electric dryer will be approximately 8 hours after the start of drying.

Store pumpkin chips in a glass container with a vacuum lid.

Dried pumpkin powder

Dried pumpkin pulp can turn into a nutritious, tasty and extremely healthy product - pumpkin powder, or flour. There are two ways to get the basis for it. Firstly, pumpkin pulp may remain after harvesting the juice. Secondly, you can simply dry the pumpkin and grind it into powder. It will consist entirely of healthy fiber and retain all minerals and vitamins. The number of pumpkins is arbitrary.

Ingredients:

Three kilograms of pumpkin pulp;

3-4 liters of water.

Cooking method:

Cut the pumpkin into pieces, remove the insides and skin.

Cut pumpkin pulp into small pieces, without worrying about beauty.

Throw pumpkin pieces into boiling water and boil for twenty minutes.

Cool the soft boiled pumpkin, then puree with a blender. If there is no blender, you can simply rub the pieces through a regular sieve.

Spread pumpkin puree in a thin layer on a piece of baking paper.

Dry the puree in the oven, heating it to 130 degrees.

After 15-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the layer, the plate will be dried.

Dried pumpkin in the oven will remain chopped, packaged in paper bags or glass containers.

Lemon-honey candied pumpkin

A simple recipe for candied pumpkin is sure to come in handy for families with small children. Instead of store-bought sweets, you can cook dried pumpkin in an electric dryer (with convection) and make it almost indistinguishable from harmful treats. It takes a lot of time to prepare, but the result will please.

Ingredients:

Two kilograms of pumpkin;

Six hundred grams of sugar;

Two medium lemons;

Half a glass of powdered sugar;

Cooking method:

Cut the pumpkin pulp into small cubes with a side of no more than 2 cm.

Cover future candied fruits with sugar and leave overnight.

The pumpkin should release juice. It must be drained into a separate container.

Peel the lemons, remove the pits and grate (can be chopped in a blender). Pour the entire resulting mass into pumpkin juice, mix.

Bring lemon pumpkin syrup to a boil over medium heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer for three minutes, stirring constantly.

Strain the syrup, pour it into the pumpkin, put it on the fire.

Simmer until the syrup thickens for about an hour and a half.

Drain the remaining syrup, strain the pieces of pumpkin.

Lay them out on waxed paper.

Dry in an electric dryer, turning on the convection mode, at a temperature of 50 °.

Candied fruits will be ready in 12 hours.

The pumpkin pieces should be completely cool.

Now they can be sprinkled with powdered sugar and put in a glass jar for storage.

Light snack with dried pumpkin

Dried pumpkin in the oven or electric dryer is great for making light snacks and salads.

Ingredients:

One hundred grams of dried pumpkin (it is better to take thin strips);

One hundred grams of peeled walnuts;

Two cloves of garlic;

A bunch of fresh herbs (to taste: dill, cilantro, parsley);

a tablespoon of wine vinegar;

Salt and pepper to taste;

Half a pod of hot pepper (optional).

Cooking method:

Pour dried pumpkin slices with a liter of water, salt with a pinch of salt and cook until the pumpkin slices soften.

While the pumpkin is cooking, peel and grate the garlic.

Crush the walnuts in a mortar. If there is no mortar, they can be chopped with a knife or rolled with a rolling pin.

Cut greens.

Remove the finished pumpkin with a slotted spoon, condemn, then squeeze.

Mix all the ingredients of the snack, season with wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

Pumpkin dried in an electric dryer or oven is best stored at a temperature of 10° to 15° and low humidity (up to 60%). You can put the slices in breathable canvas bags, but airtight containers and glass jars with a vacuum lid are best for long-term storage of dried vegetables.

In order for the pumpkins to lie longer, you need to put a dry parchment sheet on the bottom of the containers, and cover the slices with the same sheet.

Very sweet varieties of pumpkin can be dried specifically to give to children instead of chips and candies. Do not add additional sugar during drying to maximize the benefits. You can take these sweet and healthy strips with you to work as a light snack.

The pumpkin is covered with a hard skin, which can be very attractive and bright in color, and not just the usual orange. This feature of the product has led to the fact that it has become increasingly used to create decorative items, but before taking on the process, you need to figure out how to dry the pumpkin. This can be done at home, but you can only count on the desired result if all the steps of the manipulation are correctly performed. Violation of the material preparation technique will lead to the fact that it will have to be thrown away, because. it will be impossible to restore it.

Pumpkin Features and Harvesting Rules

Despite the fact that pumpkin is not used so often in modern art as a material for creating crafts, in everyday life its peel has been used for many centuries for the production of dishes. According to knowledgeable people, drinks in such containers do not deteriorate longer and retain their temperature. And if you insist on water in them, it will help in the treatment of diabetes.

Almost any variety of pumpkin can be used to create decorative items, but these two show themselves at their best:

• The fruits are small and bright. They do not even have to be processed somehow, it is enough to dry them properly. True, this material has one significant drawback - its bright shades begin to fade after some time, which affects the quality of the decor.

Tip: Do not try to speed up the drying process of the product, this will not lead to anything good. The so-called express approaches lead to an unevenly dried component, which can fall apart at any time and even become moldy after a few hours.

• The unique shape of the product allows you to create the most unusual products from it even at home. Despite the fact that the bark of the vegetable also changes its color over time, it still remains very pleasant - light brown or yellow-golden.

It is not enough to dry the pumpkin for crafts, first you need to properly collect and prepare it. There are very few harvesting rules, but they are all very important for obtaining the desired result:

1. The stalks should dry out and turn brown. Only after that you can collect the product for the manufacture of decor.
2. The stem must be cut, not broken off. In this case, you need to leave at least 6-10 cm of the plant part.
3. Only perfect products are taken into work. Rotten, softened and spoiled pumpkins will have to be thrown away.
4. If the frost is close, and the vegetable is not ripe enough, it is still removed from the garden, otherwise the color of the product may deteriorate.

Large pumpkins are not suitable for decoration, because. they cannot be thoroughly and evenly dried. The smaller the workpiece, the easier it is to work with.

If you plan to make a craft for Halloween or some kind of exhibition from the product, you can use a special drying method. It will allow you to get the original product, the shelf life of which will be no more than 2-3 weeks.

• Decorative pumpkin is washed and dried. After that, you need to cut off the top from it and completely remove the pulp. A custom spoon or a handy construction scraper can help with this.
• Now the inner and outer surfaces of the product must be disinfected. At home, you should use alcohol or vodka for this. We moisten a sponge in the selected product, which we wet the material with.
• We stuff the prepared fruit with newspapers and put it in a dry and warm place. A shelf on a sunny wall, a cabinet surface, even a window sill will do.
• We change newspapers every 6-8 hours, as they get wet. Drying time is 2-3 days.

It is worth considering that the product will dry much longer if the ambient temperature is below 22ºС. High humidity in the room can also do a bad job.

Long drying technique and its nuances

Pumpkins are dried only in a natural way. In an electric dryer or oven, this result cannot be achieved, even if you spend several days on it and use the minimum temperature. At first it may really seem that the product has reached the desired degree of density, but this opinion is deceptive.

Drying pumpkins for decoration should be carried out according to the following scheme:

• First, preparation is carried out, during which the surface of the fetus is thoroughly washed using a soap solution. After that, we dry the pumpkin and wipe it with an alcohol-containing liquid.
• Then the workpiece must be temporarily sent to a room with good ventilation. The product must not be exposed to direct sunlight.
• After 1-2 weeks of such exposure, the surface of the vegetable will change its color and become much harder. This is a signal that you can move on to the next stage.
• Now begins the most simple, but tedious time. The final drying of the product takes up to six months, after which the component becomes hard as wood. All this time, the workpiece should be in a room with good ventilation and a minimum of light. It is better if it is suspended from the ceiling. If it is not possible to organize such drying, we make stands with holes through which the product will be constantly blown.
• At the initial stage of drying pumpkins should be checked regularly. Fruits that rot or shrivel should be thrown away, they are no longer good for anything. If mold appears on the hard bark, we try to gently wipe it off with a dry cloth. In case of softening of the material under the colony, the product is discarded.
• Every couple of weeks, the vegetables should be rotated so that they do not form a “pressure sore”, and the drying takes place evenly.

As soon as the pumpkin becomes light, and the seeds begin to rustle inside it, we can assume that the drying is completed. Now the product can be subjected to the intended processing. It is polished, rubbed with sandpaper, cut out drawings on the surface. Lacquer and various paints perfectly fit on natural material. It holds the glue on which the decorative elements are mounted. If everything is done correctly, such a product will serve for years.

Real works of applied art can be obtained from the “natural product” collected on the “natural product”. For some, this statement sounds somewhat unusual, but there is a considerable amount of truth in it. One has only to take a closer look at, and you will surely see the appropriate "". Especially in this regard, massive gourds stand out, so let's consider what can be done from the grown and prepared decorative.

What can be made from pumpkin

The first thing that comes to mind is a "head" for Halloween. But the decorative "abilities" of the steep-sided culture do not end there.

If you arm yourself with imagination and make some efforts, then from this plant you can build:

• The simplest candlesticks, lanterns or caskets (it all depends on the size of the workpiece).


• A vase with a cutout for a plastic tray in which the flowers will stand. It is even easier to insert a cut-out flat bottom from a bottle there. Often they are treated with decoupage glue and “dipped” in sugar - spectacular sparkles are obtained.


• Pots and small saucepans are considered more complex in terms of technology, which well emphasize the taste of cream soup.


It turns out that the assortment of crafts from a prepared decorative pumpkin is limited only by the imagination of the master. But no less important role is played by the blanks themselves, which are worth mentioning separately.

Choice of pumpkins for decoration

A small plant weighing from 100 to 500 g is best suited for such purposes. You can take all ripe and healthy rounds from this weight category. Fruits with more impressive "dimensions", in turn, are distinguished by thicker pulp, which is more likely to rot than reach the desired conditions.

Naturally, the pumpkin should be whole, without scratches, and even more so cracks. Equally important is the place of gathering and its time. So, the best choice would be a fruit hanging on a dried brown lash. But immature, too loose or "stuck" by the first frost specimens should be immediately put aside.




A separate topic is decorative melon lines. The most popular of them are the following varieties:

• "Orange" really like citrus. Small size (up to 300 g) combined with a bright color make these fruits a welcome decoration. In appearance, they can be both spherical and slightly flattened.
• "Tangerine". These crumbs are easily recognizable by their smooth skin with underdeveloped ribs.
• "Chalmoid". It is distinguished by an unusual type of fruit, which, as it were, is assembled from two parts. The variety is considered large and amazes with a variety of design options. Instances with a large upper half are often referred to as fungi.
• "Baby Boo", which, due to its small (10 cm) diameter and white color, can be mistaken for a giant garlic.
• "Kleine Bicolor". The contrasting "pear" color scheme is emphasized by a clear border: a dark green underside with light stripes is replaced by a rich yellow top.
• "Sweet Dumpling". Quite large (400–500 g) fruits with ribs delight the eye with alternating white or yellowish “facets” and green stripes with frequent white dots running along their entire length.

Important! With open "garden" drying, the plant quickly begins to "give out" an unpleasant odor, so it is better to place it away from the gazebo and paths.


In addition to varietal diversity, there is also a species "scatter". The fact is that pumpkins of the original “bottle” shape, which are in demand as decorations, belong to a different species, known as lagenaria. And already from this “section” the most spectacular varieties stand out, such as the club-shaped line “Cobra” with spotted coloring and a bizarre shape.

Preparation

Even before you dry the pumpkin you like to get crafts from it, it will have to be properly prepared. This process is not fraught with special tricks and comes down to the following procedures:

• To begin with, the peel is washed in soapy water and thoroughly dried.
• After that, the fruit is wiped with alcohol or any liquids with its "participation".
• It remains to transfer the pumpkin to a place protected from sunlight. In such a room there should be good ventilation. There, the workpiece will stay until its shell begins to change color (this is about 1-2 weeks).



How to dry a pumpkin for long-term storage

Proper drying is a delicate process, and it also requires a fair amount of patience. If the fruit of the usual form can dry from 3 months to six months, then a more “thick-skinned” lagenaria will take at least 10 months (or even 1 year).

Did you know?It takes an average of 35-40 fruits to prepare 1 liter of pumpkin seed oil.

The main rule is that shrinkage should be natural. Some try to speed it up by “running” in the microwave or oven, but this negates all the decorativeness of the fruit: at the slightest mistake, the pumpkin will turn out to be baked, and it would be wiser to eat it. With such heat treatment, the structure of the fibers is disturbed, and as a result, the peel loses the necessary rigidity.

Therefore, it would be better to let the moisture out "to chance". The role is assigned to the pores covering the surface of the fruit and the stalk. Immediately before drying the whole ripe pumpkin chosen for decoration, you will have to put an oilcloth or a piece of thick film under it - over time it gives a natural leak. This is a necessary condition for storage in room.
This method is the most massive and simple, but it has its own nuances that it is advisable to keep in mind:

• The fruits are laid out (or better - hung) on ​​the loggia or balcony. If “lying” storage is planned, they try to place the pumpkin on a table with frequent gaps between the planks - they will provide proper ventilation.
• Do not forget about the constant circulation of air (for these reasons, solid countertops and closed cabinets, warm kitchens or musty cellars are not suitable).
• The first couple of weeks, the blanks are inspected every day, rejecting too soft or wrinkled specimens. There is one tricky point here related to mold. It can appear on the peel from exposure to moisture flowing from the fruit. Such "traces" are easily erased, but after a couple of days they appear again. This is not scary - at the end of drying, you will see an unusual pattern on the "skin" of the vegetable.

Important!Purely fodder varieties are difficult to decorate- not every knife can cope with bulky and dense pulp.



• Unripe pumpkins rot most often, while hitting their ripe "colleagues". Seeing a small spot, try to put pressure on it with your finger - rot lends itself immediately, and it is better to throw out such an instance. Due to inexperience, the “effect” of rot can be confused with mold, which was mentioned in the paragraph above.
• For uniform shrinkage, weekly turning is required (at least once a week and a half). This simple manipulation will keep the pumpkins from rotting.

Did you know?Every autumn (September to November) the German city of Ludwigsburg turns into the “pumpkin capital of the world”. There is the largest festival entirely dedicated to this culture.

Some purely decorative varieties in warm regions can be dried on fresh air. Here, too, there are technological subtleties:

• First of all, the fruit is cut off along with a 4–5 cm tail. It is not worth tearing it off - moisture evaporates much worse through an uneven hole, which will slow down the whole process.
• The tail is also required (torn stalks are very susceptible to rot).
• The future "decor" is hung separately or placed on ventilated wooden pallets. Otherwise, the requirements are the same: regular inspection and “scrolling” with rejection as necessary.




By the way, about waste. Get ready for the fact that even with the right content, 7–10% of the blanks will go to the pit - this is the price “for beauty”.

In addition to the two main methods, there is another one. This storage "on the vine", which is practiced by followers of the most natural agricultural technology. Everything is simple here - the fruits dry out without separation from the plant. For the best effect, they are placed in divided sections of the fence or palisade with prepared niches.

The obvious advantages of such drying are excellent ventilation, coupled with a good “preservation” of a ripened pumpkin, which is not afraid of rain or frost. Already after the cut, it lends itself well to varnishing or painting. Of the shortcomings, only the insecurity of such plantations stands out - they can easily become the prey of country thieves or suffer from large animals.




How to determine readiness

Having found out the main details, let's not forget about such a question as checking the readiness of the product for artistic processing.