How to Grow Luffa: The Complete Seed-to-Sponge Guide

Hello friends, welcome back to the garden. This video is going to be special because I'm going to be doing a full grow guide on one of my absolute favorite things to grow in the garden. I'm going to be teaching you guys how to grow luffa from seed to sponge. I kind of hate to admit this, and I'm curious if this happened to you guys as well, but for the longest time I thought sponges like this came from the ocean. I thought they came from the sea. I don't know how I thought they grew or where they came from. I just thought it came from the ocean somehow and I didn't ever question it. But no, we can grow these right in our backyard. And when I first found this out as a baby gardener, this was probably five years ago, I was like, I have to grow this in my garden. Are you kidding? I can grow a sponge in my backyard and I got to do this. And I loved it so much. And I love using these so much that I have grown them ever since. And I probably will continue to grow them every year for the rest of my life. So what the luffa plant is, is it's actually a gourd. It's in the cucurbitaceae family, which is the same family as cucumbers, melons, squash, winter squash, pumpkins, other gourds. They're all related and it grows pretty similarly as well. And luffa has so many uses. Actually, a lot of cultures grow luffa to eat. So when the luffa is really young and tender and smaller, it's edible. And a lot of cultures will use this in stews or soups or other cultural dishes. And again, they'll just grow it to eat and they won't even use it as a sponge. But luffa also does this incredible thing where if you let the fruit mature like this, the inside creates this dense network of fibers that look and act like a sponge. How cool is that? And I get a lot of questions like, is this sponge actually good? Does it actually work? Yes. This is as good of a sponge as any other sponge that you pick up in the grocery store. And a lot of those sponges in the grocery store, all they are plastic. And we're just contributing to our overwhelming plastic issue in the world. And of course there's microplastics that can get into your food and everything. This is just plant fiber. And the best thing about this is when you're done with it and when it's old and you can't use it anymore, you can just chuck it right into your compost. Again, like you're not buying plastic and then we're not throwing it in a landfill. It's such a better option. You can use this to scrub your dishes. It's perfect. You can use this to scrub your body. I think it's perfect for that. The abrasion that it has is great. And then you just let it dry out in between uses and it's the same. And I'll show you guys some examples of that later. But let's go ahead and get into how we grow the loofah because I have some tips over the last five years of growing this. Here's where I think a lot of people mess up with loofah. I posted a harvest video to my Instagram a few days ago of me harvesting my completely dried loofah and I got a lot of you in the comments saying I planted loofah and I'm just now seeing the baby loofahs come about in September or my vine is just now flowering and I don't think that I'm going to get enough before our first frost. And unfortunately you're probably right and you probably did not start your loofah early enough in the season. A lot of us underestimate how long loofah takes to grow because it's related to all these other gourds and pumpkins and things. We think that it takes the same amount of time but the loofah plant takes anywhere between 150 to 200 days from seed to harvest. That is like over six months of growing season that this plant needs. So for those of us in like zone 8a, I have never had an issue growing loofah and maturing it to harvest. And I have even direct sown this plant. I have let volunteers come up and I've always made it to harvest. But for those of you in cooler growing environments where you have much shorter growing seasons, you have to start this plant indoors long before that last frost in the spring. You need to be starting it with like your tomatoes, your peppers, all the other things that you have to get started before the last frost. So about six to eight weeks before that last frost. Even earlier if you live in zones like three or four, like start it as early as you can and yes you might have long vines kind of taking over your indoor space or your greenhouse but it's worth it to get it started early if you really do want to grow this plant. Another thing is that loofah really loves the heat. So we are not planting our loofah out the second that our last frost has happened. We are going to wait until about three to four weeks after our last frost to plant it in the ground. We want the soil to be nice and warm for loofah. If we plant it in cold soil it's just going to set the plant back and so that's another mistake and for some of you it may just not be possible to grow this plant in your microclimate and for that I am so so sorry but I at least know for those of us in zone 8a we can grow this pretty well and then especially for those of you in warmer zones this is definitely a plant for you. Let's talk about the seeds because the other challenge with starting loofah especially from seed is that loofah has a pretty hard outer seed covering. I just dropped that one it's going to be a volunteer next year and so if you do nothing and you just plant this it probably will germinate but it could take a really long time it could take a couple of weeks and when again we're talking about a plant that we need to get started asap we don't want to wait a couple of weeks for this to germinate so there's a few things that you can do to speed things along you can scarify the outer seed covering and that just means taking a knife or some scissors and just making a little a light nick on the outer seed covering we're not performing surgery on this seed we're just lightly nicking it you can also take some sandpaper and just kind of make a little bit of an abrasion and this is just going to make an opening in the seed cover there's another one more volunteers this is just going to ensure that water can actually get into the seed another thing you can do is you can soak the seeds 24 to 48 hours before you want to plant you can go ahead and soak them in water and that again is just going to make sure that water is getting in there and it's going to start that germination process when we're starting loofah from seed whether it's inside or in your greenhouse we want to make sure that we're starting them in a big enough pot loofah like other kirkabits do not like root disturbance and so when i'm starting a loofah indoors i'm going to do them in a large soil block or a large pot like a six inch pot with potting soil i'm not going to do the whole seed starting mix and then up pot and up pot and up pot because this doesn't like root disturbance so we're just going to go ahead and start it in a bigger pot that way we don't have to keep moving it up and disturbing those roots it needs to be planted in the pot that it's going to live in until it is transplanted out into the garden and that can minimize that root disturbance i think that soil blocks work amazingly but if you're somewhere that lives in a cooler environment it's going to be in there for a really long time i would go with a pot loofah seeds are also going to germinate best when it's warm so if you have a seed warming mat go ahead and throw that under the seedlings and then that's going to speed up the germination even further when it comes time to transplant out your loofah where you put this plant is going to be extremely important loofah is probably one of the most vigorous plants i have ever grown in my life the vines grow over 20 feet long and so needless to say this needs a really large trellis and it needs to be very sturdy as well because one vine can also produce a ton of loofah for instance i'm growing two this year usually i just grow one plant because one is enough um one is enough and i've counted 20 so far and it's still flowering it's still producing i don't know how many i will end up with by the end of the year usually what i do at the end of the season i will eat the smaller ones that have just now pollinated because they're just not going to make it to maturity for sponges but that being said don't go planting like six of these plants unless you want to start a sponge business or something because you really just need one or two and like i said the trellis really matters something sturdy like a cattle panel trellis is perfect or i also have the other trellis from gardeners it's the large squash trellis and that also works really well i usually grow my loofahs up that one but i decided to switch it up this year and grow it up these two trellises fun fact i actually planted it over on the other trellis and the vines have made their way onto this trellis like i said the vines are extremely long and it has somehow found its way from one trellis to another in my garden and so you definitely want to be prepared for that like a tomato trellis or some other kind of trellis just is not going to cut it for this plant when you're planting them out you want to put it in a spot that is the most sun you can give it eight plus hours of sunlight per day is what a loofah needs so it's not gonna perform well in part shade it needs full full sun this is a plant that loves sun and it loves heat so the most that you can give of that the better let's talk about fertilizing and watering when you are planting loofah you do want to plant it in fertile soil i add a lot of organic matter to the soil before i'm planting a loofah like i said this is a plant that is growing profusely it is producing a ton of vegetative matter so it's not going to survive off of your hopes and dreams it it needs organic matter so compost in the soil before planting is really great and then if you want you can go in like halfway through the growing season and add an organic fertilizer like a slow release granular fertilizer to the soil just to give it a little bit of a of a pep use something that has higher amount of potassium than nitrogen we don't want to give loofah too much nitrogen it's already putting on a ton of leafy growth what it needs is potassium so that it can focus on that fruit growth and then for watering loofah likes consistent moisture it doesn't like too much water and it doesn't like not enough water and so consistent moisture and watering more deeply rather than more frequently is going to be best pretty much like your other vegetables right like pretty much like your your tomatoes and your peppers and things like that there's not too much of a difference with watering with this plant let's say you've planted your loofah it's growing amazing and now you're seeing a bunch of fruits on your vine first of all i do want to note that loofah is a late flower a lot of people will grow loofah and you'll be like three months in and you're like wow my plant is not even flowering yet that's totally normal with loofah it's not gonna flower immediately it's not gonna flower earlier like your other pumpkins and stuff loofah takes patience it takes patience but once it starts flowering it really starts growing and once that process happens it takes off and then you can't even keep up with how many loofah are popping up per day the male flowers with loofah are pretty interesting i have one right here so there'll be a long stalk of male flowers and there's like multiple male flowers on this one stalk if that makes any sense the female flowers are just like your other squash they're going to have a little baby loofah attached to them along with the flower so when you have loofah hanging like this to know when to harvest just depends on what you're using them for for instance if you're wanting to eat them you want to harvest them at a smaller stage when they're young and they're tender and they don't grow into this big fibrous thing all of these that you see here i am letting them fully mature and then i have one here that is completely dried out so this one is still green not ready yet this one is turning yellow and some people think that there's something wrong with their plant when this happens this is totally normal and this means that it's in the beginning stages of drying out so this is what we want it'll turn completely brown like this i actually just harvested this one a couple of days hanging and attached to the plant right here when it gets to this point and you hear the seeds rattling inside you know that your loofah is ready now you have your completely dried loofah and this is the most satisfying part there's a little thing here i've already taken it out but you'll just kind of pop the end open and then you will want to shake out the seeds and i've already shaken out all of this most of the seeds from here but the seeds will just come out there might be a few left in here yeah so they'll come out like this i'm an insane chaos gardener so i'm just gonna like throw that and hope that volunteers come out okay the most satisfying part is this we are going to peel our loofah i like to start out by squeezing it a little bit of asmr that's fine and then once you get some cracks you'll just find a little place to get your fingers in and you start peeling it so satisfying sometimes it'll peel off in like one sheet that's the most satisfying and sometimes it's like a bunch of little pieces and there we go a perfect natural sponge right from nature grown in my backyard this is so so satisfying now storing these is really easy you just want to keep them dry i will store mine just like in a basket on the table i kind of use them as like a fall decoration and then to use these you can use them however you please you can use them whole you can cut them up into pieces one of my absolute favorite things to do with loofah is to make christmas gifts i get little soap molds and i get the the round ones and then i will cut a little round section of loofah the size of the soap mold i will put it in there and then i'll get a soap base which is basically just soap that you can melt down and then you can re-pour into the molds and make your very own soaps and the loofah piece in the middle is like a natural exfoliant within the soap i have so many family members texting me saying you better make me some loofah soap this year my mom especially loves this and she is always asking me for loofah because she um has some chronic pain she has some psoriatic arthritis and she swears that the abrasiveness of the loofah like really helps her pain and i totally i totally get it like i said it's an amazing sponge and it comes from nature and i'm sure that it has some healing qualities beyond just being a scrub but yeah how to care for your loofah sponges while you're using them and like i said we can use this for anything your body your dishes your sinks your tubs i bring them outside and i will use them to clean my seed trays i'll use them to clean the sides of my greenhouse i'll use them to clean my garden tools you can use it to clean anything and it works like a charm but we do want to let these dry out in between uses so that we aren't harboring bacteria just like with any other sponge or dish cloth or anything like that we want to keep these as dry as we can unless we're using them so what i like to do is i cut these into sections and then i'll puncture a little hole on each section and i'll add some twine and that way it'll just have a little string that i can hang it up after i'm done using it so that it can dry completely some other commonly asked questions about growing loofah one is why are there so many ants on my loofah and it's true ants are very attracted to loofah but it's nothing sinister going on they just like the nectar that the loofah flower at the end of the loofah is putting out and that's it unfortunately loofah and ants are just always going to go hand in hand but at least loofah does not deal with the other pests loofah is very very very resistant against the squash vine borer actually i don't think that the squash vine borer can even attack it because the stems are so small and thin and it can't get in it so i've never had a loofah plant die from squash vine borer the squash bugs also tend to leave it alone i don't know what it is about loofah but i never see squash bugs on it and the bean beetles also tend to not eat the leaves and so it's overall just a very pest free plant other than attracting the ants but like i said it's nothing sinister going on and i just i just let the ants be there another question i get is can i harvest the loofah green and still dry them out to make sponges and yes you can especially at the end of the season if your first frost is coming and you're like wow i have a ton of green loofahs already on the plant as long as they're a pretty mature size especially if they've kind of started to turn yellow that's going to be even better you can cut them off and you can dry them off of the vine you can put them in a nice sunny spot like i've brought mine into my greenhouse before and dried them off the vine or you can process them green there is a way to do this i'm not an expert on this because i've never done that before but i do know that there is a way meg from the future popping in i decided to go ahead and process a green loofah i sacrificed one of them to show you guys how you can do it because although i've never done it before and i have been able to let all of mine kind of dry out naturally and then process them because i live in a longer growing season those of you that live in a shorter growing season you probably do come across that problem very often where you have a ton of green loofah at the end of the season so i processed one and it's pretty easy it does take a little bit more work than just letting them dry out and then letting them turn brown and then peeling them but if you need to you can i would say if your loofah have already started to turn yellow they're already changing colors i think you should cut it from the vine and you should let that process continue naturally and let them dry out in a really warm and sunny spot i like to bring mine in my greenhouse and just let them continue to naturally dry out but if they're still very very green as long as they are a mature size while they're still green they should have enough of that fibrous inside that you can take them off and you can go ahead and peel them green if they're small they're not going to have the fibrous spongy inside that we need but if they're large you can go ahead and do it so i have one here this is one that was green i sacrificed it to show you guys and i went ahead and peeled it and it's in the process of drying out so after you harvest your green loofah you're going to want to take a knife and make a cut all the way down the loofah and start to peel it when you peel it it's going to be slimy and there's going to be a lot of plant material still kind of around all of the sponginess if that makes sense and so after we peel the loofah we're gonna need to wash all that plant material out and so the easiest way to do this if you have a hose that has like a jet setting or just a really powerful spray you're just gonna kind of spray the crap out of it and that will dislodge the plant material that is kind of inside of the the spongy part if that makes sense and it'll wash it away and then what you're left with after it's done is your sponge now if it's not as mature it may not be as fibrous as one that you let dry naturally because it wasn't fully mature yet but you're still left with a pretty decent sponge here so this one as you can see there are seeds still inside of this after i was done washing out the loofah the seeds are still in here and i am going to let this continue to dry out and i'm going to let those seeds continue to dry so that i can eventually shake them out some people take it a step further and they're cutting their loofahs in half and they're removing all the seeds and then you can fashion the loofah material into a sponge i've seen people get really creative with this where they will use the loofah material almost like a cloth or something and you can sew pieces together to create like a square spongy cloth i have also seen people turn loofahs into chicken nesting pads like there's so many things that you can do with loofah so that is how you process a sponge that is green i know that there's a different method out there it involves an oven and i have not done that method before give it a little youtube search because i have seen it before i can't remember who it was but i've seen it and that also seems to be like you know a process that would work so if you are left at the end of the season with a ton of green loofah don't be fraught they can be saved i hope that this guide has answered some questions that you may have had about growing loofah and has inspired you to grow loofah if you haven't already if you grow loofah successfully drop a comment down below let us know where you're growing them and if you have any other tips that i may have forgotten or i maybe didn't cover let me know in the comments i would love to know and you guys can find me on all of the things i am also on substack and i post all of my garden to table recipes on substack so if you like that type of content be sure to check it out i also have a podcast and we drop new episodes every single week it's called the garden girls podcast so go and give that a listen and i will see you guys in the next one thank you so much for watching bye