Dipper Gourds

All about Dipper Gourds

There are basically 2 types of dipper gourds. There is long handled dipper and short handled dippers. Both of these dippers can be crafted into birdhouses, ladles, various musical instruments, eating and cooking utensils, weapons for hunting, and much more.

The short dippers are very flat on the bottom and grow handles that are about 14-20 inches in length and are about 16 inches in diameter around the fattest part of the gourd. With these short handled dippers you can express your creativity by decorating them like you would do to wood. You can stain these, cut them, drill them, cut them, paint them, carve and many other things to create crafts. In a lot of cultures these were used to gather water from the pond or lakes and to take it back to their homes.

The larger long handled dippers are about 14-24 inches or even longer in length and are about 20 inches in diameter. The handles on these might be straight or slightly curved and they have a true ball-like shape at the bottom. The best time to grow your gourds is about 3 weeks after the last frost has left when the temp will stay steady at about 60 degrees. Spread these out about 10 inches apart so they will have a lot of space to grow.

With these gourds a lot of the growers will twist and bend them so that they will form unique shapes. The shapes cannot be undone unless you break the whole gourds. Some popular shapes that you can train your dippers for is a form of snake, knots and ties and twists and twirls, and sculpt them into animal shapes, just be careful when training them because they will break easily.