How to dry a handicraft pumpkin?

Many delicious and nutritious dishes are made with the versatile vegetable like pumpkin. Pumpkin is no less useful in household use, since its dried shell has long been used for the manufacture of various household items and handicrafts. Various types of tableware, boxes, vases, lanterns and other decorative items are known.

If a vegetable grows right on its own plot, then nothing special needs to be done with it to prepare for drying. The shell dries by itself as the pumpkin ripens. The longer it stays in the natural conditions of the garden, the stronger and more durable its peel will be, in comparison with those fruits that were removed still unripe and reached already in the house. The only thing that can damage the shell of a decorative or ordinary food pumpkin is the first frost. Therefore, it is necessary to follow the weather forecasts in order to harvest on time.

For products of various sizes, it is correct to grow or buy ripe fruits of different varieties on the market, and not take unripe small pumpkins with a loose green skin, which has not yet created a characteristic strong shell on the outside. In addition, a stalk should remain on the vegetable selected for crafts. It should also be healthy, with no mold or points of incipient decay.

Having selected the desired instance of a vegetable for drying and subsequent use in making crafts, you can prepare it for further work.

• First, you need to wash the fruit well from dried soil, dust and other visible contaminants. The pumpkin should be washed under warm water with a soft cloth so as not to scratch its surface.
• When finished, you can dab it well with a towel and leave to dry for an hour. In this case, the room should be dry and shaded, without direct sunlight.
• Then you can clean the vegetable again with a napkin and make sure that its surface is completely dry.
• To clean the pumpkin from the inside, you need to take a sharp knife and cut out the top with a stalk with a beautiful, even line.
• If you need a whole vegetable to create masterpieces, then it should be carefully peeled from the pulp by scraping it inside with a metal spoon. Sometimes crafts require parts of the fruit that will be much easier to peel by cutting it into pieces.

There are several ways to dry pumpkin for decorative purposes. For this, you can use various devices and devices. Of course, you can wait a long time for it to dry naturally at room temperature, but this path often ends in poor results, as the fruits begin to rot or mold. If, nevertheless, this gradual method is chosen, then you need to know a few secrets.

• There should not be a single trace of pulp on the inner walls of the pumpkin.
• After the shell is thoroughly scraped off, the pumpkin should be wiped from the inside with a cloth soaked in alcohol or other strong drink.
• The peeled and mashed fruit should be stuffed with scraps of thin crumpled paper, like a newspaper.
• From time to time it is necessary to change the wet paper inside the pumpkin to dry and keep it in a dry place out of the reach of sunlight.
• If several fruits are dried at once, then they should not touch, and it is advisable to install a grate below them for better ventilation.

Fruits peeled from seeds and pulp can be dried quickly and without loss for crafts, if this process is carried out using an electric dryer or an airfryer. Good products are obtained when they are gradually dried at a temperature of no more than 80 degrees in the oven.

It is also necessary to monitor the drying process when using other electrical appliances, except for microwave ovens with a 660 Watt mode, in which products are always spinning, in order to prevent uneven heat exposure. The readiness of the thermal drying phase can be checked visually. Its color should turn brownish on the outside, and it should taste a little viscous. Remains of pulp on the walls should also be dry and brown.

When a vegetable is intended for long-term preservation at home, then it is necessary to take measures against its destruction and spoilage. The main condition is to minimize the effect of moisture on the dried pumpkin shell. Dampness can quickly trigger the process of decay and other fungal growths.

The room temperature should be between 10 and 30 degrees Celsius. The pumpkin can be destroyed by both cold and heat, especially the bright rays of sunlight. Sometimes dried fruits are contaminated with food insects, from which they can be protected by covering the surface of the finished craft with acrylic or colorless manicure varnish. Various types of chemical treatment and painting also help to preserve products for a long time. Violations in the rules for drying and storing items made from natural products can lead to the fact that they quickly deteriorate and have to be thrown away.

In everyday life, dishes made of special, decorative, pumpkin varieties have been known for a very long time. Some of them even stored water and other drinks.According to observations, if you put a vessel made of dried pumpkin peel in a draft, even in very intense heat, it will keep the water inside cool, as if it had just been drawn from an underground spring. When liquids are infused in such dishes, a healthy drink is obtained, which helps with stomach ailments and diabetes.

To grow a pumpkin with excellent external qualities, you can use varieties such as Cucurbita or Lagenaria. The first of them has small, oval fruits with a bright, uniform skin color. But over time, the shades begin to fade and lose their decorative appeal, if not covered with two or three coats of varnish. The second type is characterized by various original forms, which by themselves can decorate the interior of a small cafe, home kitchen or living room in the country style. Small lanterns can be made of them, but without thorough processing, they will also quickly lose their pleasant golden or beige color.

Many people harvest a large vegetable in order to make a decoration out of it for the fall Halloween holiday. This tradition originated in North America from Irish settlers, and now every year there are exhibitions of wonderful crafts from various varieties of this vegetable culture. For this purpose, it is necessary to lay several peeled pumpkins of a suitable variety and size for gradual drying.

The bottle variety can dry quickly by placing it in a 40-degree oven and turning it constantly. Pumpkins of this type also dry well in a natural way, within 2-3 months. Small specimens can be dried in two hours using a regular household hair dryer, but you need to do this intermittently and not overdo it, otherwise the crust will be too brittle and fragile. If peeling appears on the surface of the crust, it can be sanded with fine sandpaper, and then covered with a protective layer of varnish or paint.