[Summer 2017 – Columbus, OH]
Luffa loves warm temperatures. On our first try, we were late to plant luffa seeds. Therefore, luffa vines didn’t have enough time to grow well. However, at the end of the season, we were lucky to get just one luffa fruit.
[Summer 2018 – Columbus, OH]
Luffa is a tropical vine that loves hot temperatures. They are not frost-hardy and need 150 to 200 days to mature. Young luffa fruits are edible and have a mild soft taste like zucchini. We can even make luffa sponge from the matured dried ones.
2018 is our second year of growing luffa in Ohio. We planted our luffa seeds in the second week of May. They took three and a half months to appear their first few blossoms. With the weird weather patterns of this year, we were able to harvest seven young luffa fruits at the end of September.
Luffa is a good companion plant for cucumbers. The roughness and the smell of the luffa vines keep bugs and pests away from the plant. When we grow cucumber and luffa together, this will help us to protect our cucumber harvest from pests. As organic gardeners, these permaculture techniques are beneficial to save our homegrown produce naturally.
This year we were lucky enough to harvest more than twenty luffa fruits at the end of the season. If we had a long growing season, then it might give us a lot more fruits. But, due to freezing temperatures in mid-October luffa vine died at its peak of the harvesting period.
If there are not enough pollinators( bees) in our garden, then female flowers can be artificially pollinated with male flowers using a cotton bud or a small paintbrush.
GARDEN-TO-TABLE
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Kity Gardener 