rosettes. Be sure to wear gloves when you pull weeds.

You can create your own project or join existing ones. Go the website wenatcheemkdd. com. Read about past projects. You will be astounded by how many landscaping beautifi cation projects you walk or drive by every day

have been MADD projects.Some years, the WSU

Master Gardeners have completed projects for individuals and for the community.

You can register your project on the website.

Laurel compiles an annual report and would like to include everyone’s eff orts. But you can do a private, individual, kind project as well.

This year, I will be at Ohme Gardens. For the third year, garden administrator Mike Short has projects that

will clean up the gardens for the winter and give a head start on spring planting and weeding.

For this project, be sure to bring your own tools. You can call Ohme Gardens at 662-5785 for more information.

Don’t forget that the day is also dedicated for food and clothing drives and hundreds of other projects besides landscaping.

Participate in this community day and be proud to live in such a caring, compassionate

place. Remember, THE DIFFERENCE IS YOU.

A WSU Master Gardeners of Chelan County column appears regularly in the Home, Garden section. Bonnie Orr is one of four columnists featured.

GardenFrom Page B4

good carving gourd can cost $10 to $15, uncleaned. Sizes range from micro-minis barely 2 inches long to giant Zucca gourds, 3 feet long and 30 inches around.

In the Sacramento Valley, gourds are planted in June but aren’t ready for harvest until the following April or May. That gives them time to dry and harden.

“We leave them in the fi eld,” he explained. “We stretch big 38-by-100-foot tents over the gourds to protect them from rain and sunburn. It makes a big diff erence in the quality of the gourds. But you can still lose 30, 40 percent of your crop to rot.”

Each plant can grow hundreds of feet of vine, which travels up trees and across fi elds in tangled webs.

“Pumpkins, you can plant in a row, and they pretty much stay there,” Leiser said. “But gourds go everywhere.”

Because gourds grow well in the Sacramento area, there’s also a lot

of interest in gourd art and crafting in the region. With 500 members, the California Gourd Society has 20 “patches” or chapters statewide, including Amador, Folsom-Sacra-mento, ElDorado County and Galt. Society president Sylvia Nelson lives in Sacramento.

Once cleaned and preserved with coats of urethane, a fi nished gourd can last a century, according to the gourd society.

At area farms, Cooke hand-selects her gourds, mottled with mold. Part of the curing process, the mold helps toughen the rind to woodlike hardness. The mold also leaves an indelible pattern on the surface that she incorporates into her art.

Cooke scrubs the gourds clean, then lets her imagination take over.

“They speak to me,” she said. “They tell me what they want to be a giraff e, an elephant, a penguin, a bird feeder, a bowl. Each one is unique, but each one is special.”

On the Web:For gourd patterns and project

ideas: www.americangourdsociety.org/tutorials.html

For Halloweenjack-o’-lantern templates: Spookmaster.com

Cooke spends hundreds of hours working on some gourds. She creates delicate works of art through burning, carving, etching, dyeing, painting and polishing the gourds to perfection.

McClatchy photos

People think carving a gourd is like carving a pumpkin, Leann Cooke said. “ ... they don’t appreciate the amount of work that goes into the process,” she said. “Pumpkins stay soft; gourds are hard as wood.”

GourdFrom Page B4

Choose your favorite gourd to decorate for fall.

For pumpkins: Choose a fresh but ripe (fully orange) pumpkin. The larger and smoother, the easier to carve.

Boning and paring knives work best. Make sure they’re sharp. Ice picks or a long nail are handy for scoring the surface or poking holes.

Spread newspaper over a fl at, level work surface (this helps with cleanup). With a boning knife or other large knife, cut a circle around the stem big enough to fi t your hand. Remove the pumpkin’s “lid,” then scoop out seeds and pulp. With a spoon, scrape out stringy insides. Wipe outside of pumpkin clean.

Create a face pattern on a piece of paper, then tape it to the pumpkin. Use the ice pick or nail to trace the pattern onto the pumpkin, scoring the skin. Or draw the “face” directly onto the

pumpkin with a felt-tipped pen. Then carve out the sections with the paring knife.

If using a candle, make a circular indentation inside the pumpkin to help keep the candle upright.

For gourds: Choose a well-aged gourd covered with mold. Shake it. You should be able to hear the seeds rattle inside. Size and shape prompt imagination. Wear gloves, goggles and face mask to prevent exposure to mold. Outdoors, scrub the gourd clean with a mix of bleach and soapy water. Soak the whole gourd to remove traces of outer bumpy skin, then scour off . Let dry.

Gourds may be left whole for carving or decoration. With pencil, draw outline of design and carving areas.

If the fi nished product is going to be hollow, drill a hole to puncture the gourd. (Again, wear a mask, goggles

and gloves.) Then, using a recipro-cating blade saw or jigsaw, cut around the gourd to create an opening. Be careful: Mold may explode out of the inner gourd. Scrape out the seeds and interior mass. With tools and sandpaper, smooth the inside as much as possible.

The mature gourd is like wood, tougher than pine but lighter than balsa. The wall is 1/8- to 1-inch thick. Most gourd artists burn their outlines onto the gourd with a wood-burning tool before carving or painting. Gourds can be decorated like wood with paint, decoupage or other treatment. Leather dyes may be rubbed onto the surface with rags for see-through color. Wood carving tools, routers and edgers are used to create detail.

— McClatchy News Service

Carving tips for the home gourder

BY DEBBIE ARRINGTON

McClatchy News Service

In the garden:Pull out the summer garden

and get started on cool-weath-er vegetables and fl owers.

Now is the time to plant seeds for many fl owers direct-ly into the garden, including cornfl ower, nasturium, nigella, poppy, portulaca and sweet pea.

In the vegetable garden, seed bok choy, mustard, spinach, radishes and peas. Plant garlic and onion sets.

Set out cool-weather bedding plants including calendula, pansy, snapdragon, primrose and viola.

Around the house:It’s time to get alarmed.This is National Fire Preven-

tion Week. According to a new survey, most American homes don’t have enough smoke or carbon monoxide detectors.

About two-thirds of homes don’t meet the national recommendation for the number of smoke alarms set by the National Fire Protection Association, said the nationwide survey conducted by First Alert. Only one in 10 homes meets the recommendations for carbon monoxide monitors.

The association recom-mends at least one carbon

monoxide alarm on each level of a house and one in or near every bedroom or sleeping area. For smoke alarms, one should be installed at the top of each staircase, and one in every bedroom or sleeping area, under the guidelines. For an average two-story, three-bedroom house, that adds up to four smoke alarms and fi ve carbon monoxide alarms. (For details, see www.nfpa.org.)

Need more reasons to get fi red up? According to the U.S. Fire Adminis-tration, 84 percent of all civilian fi re deaths occur at private residences. Each year, nearly 3,000 Americans die in home fi res and about 450 succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning.

Experts recommend installing smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors and checking the batteries once a month to make sure they work.

Protection One, another home-security company, recommends that families practice fi re drills so they know what to do when the alarm goes off . Devise an escape plan, and post it where it’s visible at all times.

For more tips and a home safety checklist, click on www.fi rstalert.com/safety_checklist.php.

A fall checklist for home and garden

AP photo

A Halloween mailbox planter features faux spider plant sprayed black, foam balls mini pumpkins and artifi cial gourds.

McClatchy News Service

When you want to improve your home’s curb appeal, think outside the mailbox.

There’s nothing attractive about a rusted, peeling-paint mailbox. There is something attractive, however, about a mailbox decorated for the seasons.

Creative Mailbox Planters made in Missouri helps you create mailbox vignettes that will entertain trick-or-treaters and celebrate other special occasions. The planter simply slips over a standard black galvanized steel rural mailbox, which costs about $15 at stores such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, Ace and True Value hardware and Walmart.

Made in the USA, the planters are crafted in a high-density polyethylene with fade-resistant protection and drainage holes for plants. Faux and dried plant material can also be used in the planter; fi ll the planter with weatherproof plastic foam and insert the stems. Each planter includes a helpful sheet of tips on how to plant and maintain your planter. Suggestions for fl ower-ing combinations are also provided.

“We do recommend the homeowner give their planter a fi nal fi nish with a paint of their choosing for each cleaning at the end of the season,” says Teresa Monares with the company.

The planters, $79.95 with free shipping, are available at www.creativemailboxplanters.com or (573) 377-2246.

Think outside the mailbox

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