I am in the house today because it is November in Ohio and it's
super gray and dreary and cold outside. So since it's no fun to be outside today I decided to do an
indoor project. Now this year was my first year growing luffa gourds. So you may be familiar with
loofahs- so these scrubby sponges that can be used for washing dishes or scrubbing in the shower,
but you may not realize that these actually come from a plant! Now the reason I wanted to try these
was to make my own dish sponges but I discovered that this plant has a lot of merits other than
fantastic biodegradable sponges. What struck me first was how vigorous and lovely luffa gourd
plants or vines are. I planted one plant on the side of my arbor trellis that goes over two raised
beds in my garden this year and and as soon as we got some hot weather that thing just took off.
It covered nearly the entire trellis and had these really lovely big yellow blooms that the
pollinators just loved and it didn't get any of the diseases that many of my vining crops, so
gourds, pumpkins, um squash, cucumbers, often get growing in this area we have a lot of issues with
insects and funguses and bacteria and this luffa gourd was healthy all season long. The second
thing that I was shocked by was how prolific the gourds are on this loofah plant. So again,
one plant and I think I ended up, I should have done a final count I didn't count them, but I
feel like it was at least 20 gourds all you know close to the size some even larger. And you can
actually eat the immature gourds in like stir fry in other dishes so it is an edible crop as well.
So what I didn't realize when I did this is that it is a very very long season plant. So growing
here in Ohio my season is not long enough to let the gourds dry on the vine which is what they do
in many longer season growing areas. I saw several different recommendations as far as how to process
the green gourds so what I ended up doing was just picking them all green after the first frost, um I
let them sit in a wagon outside they did start to you want to wait for the skin to kind of loosen up
to where they're soft to the touch before you try to peel them and a lot of them did kind of get to
that point where I could start to peel them and I tried peeling some of them like that. If you hear
noise in the background we're getting a new roof so there's a lot of commotion going on. But anyway
I tried peeling some like that they were quite frankly a pain in the tuchus
Then I went to some handy dandy gardening groups and folks recommended that I pop the green gourds
in the oven at 300 degrees for about half an hour or so and then try peeling them. So I did that and
the difference was astounding um they were they were so much easier to peel after having been
baked for a little while. So I peeled the gourds, got all of the green rind off, and then I let them
soak in the sink in a weak bleach water solution and that was just to sanitize them and it kind of
brightens up the color a little bit. I then rinse them and squeeze the excess moisture out and pop
them in the dehydrator on a low setting until they were completely dry. At that point I had to
get the seeds out. So I found that while some will come out if you shake the gourds it was actually
easier for me just to cut them into the sections that I wanted to use and kind of get in there
with a chopstick or a skewer and work the seeds out that way. And then they were ready to use.
So now everyone I know will be getting home-grown dish sponges for Christmas!
Just what you all wanted I know. But I'd love to hear from you-- have you grown
luffa gourds? Was it a fun experience? Did you end up using your gourds and how did you use them?
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Growfully with Jenna. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time!