We've been overrun by coloquintes, or gourds. Hélène planted four seeds, four, and the image below is the result in our house. This does not include the ones shes given away, or the ones that are still on the vines. The vines, btw, are literally taking over the whole backyard, growing up and through trees, down the fence and even over into our neighbors driveway.
Its amazing, really. It makes me wonder, why is this particular non-edible plant not suitable for bio-fuels? It grows like a freaking weed, and grows vertically too so you could go build some trellis' and save space.
Apparently, or maybe, its the earliest domesticated plant, although then and now just used for bowls and such. Anyway, pretty crazy plant and if anyone has an idea why this thing isn't suitable for veggie oil, please let me know!
Ps. Yeah, some of the pics there are blurry. No big deal.
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2 comments:
About using gourds for veggie oil: they're not very oil-y, which means they're not very energy-rich... most of their weight is water weight, plus carbohydrate-based structural stuff (cellulose, etc.).
Soybeans are energy-rich because they're full of oils and other long-chain, hydrocarbon-based, energy-dense molecules.
Can you tell I teach intermediate metabolism??? :)
Gee, am I surprised who commented? Uh, non. :)
Ok, great, but corn and 'veggie' oil (which is what, exactly), even sunflower seeds can produce oil. Perhaps the coloquinte is less suitable, but the way this thing grows, it just seems impossible that you can't grow enough of it to be able to get somewhere with it.
I mean, 4 seeds. Four.
At the very least, it seems like you should be able to chuck these things in a wood burning stove and get some steam out of it...
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