Growing Luffa in NS

 Growing Luffa in NS

After two failed attempts in previous years, I finally grew about one dozen mature luffa in 2021. My previous failed attempts were direct-seeded into the garden and were just starting to blossom and produce fruit when the first frost hit or started inside too early and then struggled to take hold in the garden after transplanting and then never really did much.

On 2021, I started my seeds inside a few weeks before the last frost (roughly 4 weeks which is early May for me) and then planted them into black plastic in the garden well after the last frost day (a week or more into June when it was nice and warm). When I planted them, I mixed in a plastic pail of well-rotted cow manure. The black plastic was to keep down the weeds under the spreading vines and also attracts heat to warm the soil. The growing conditions in 2021 were good compared to the previous 2 years with frequent rains which meant I did not have to water them. The vines seemed to grow and grow and grow (warning: they take a lot of space in the garden) and I couldn’t see anything happening, and then all of a sudden, in early August, there were decent size luffa forming.

Beginning in early September, I started pruning off the ends of the vines and new blossoms so that the plants could focus on maturing the luffa that had already grown to a good size instead of the ones that were just starting to form and would never mature.

When the forecast was calling for frost, I picked them all (with a nice long stem) and put them in the unheated greenhouse. At that stage they were still “green” but they had turned from dark green to a very light green and were obviously drying inside as they were light as a feather. After a couple more weeks, as they were starting to turn brown and it was getting to freezing temperatures at night, I brought them into the house to continue drying on a shelf with a metal rack for airflow. They continued to dry and turn brown, and I could hear the seeds rattle inside if I shook them.  

Once they were totally dry and brown, I peeled off the skin and removed the seeds. I soaked them in a bucket of water with a little dish soap, rinsing them a few times and then dried them. Because I let the vines sprawl on the ground, instead of growing them on a trellis (the recommended method) some of them were “C” shaped instead of long and straight. Some had a few dark spots so I cut them into sections to avoid those bits. I left some round and cut some into flat pieces to better resemble a sponge for doing dishes or a washcloth in the shower.

I’ve saved seeds from the ones that matured first. They had nice, plump, black seeds inside and I will be growing those this year. One improvement I will make this year is to grow them up a trellis so they take less space in the garden and hang to grow straight luffas.