I was not going to start the video this way, but I cannot move this yet.
Because this right here is hanging on by a thread.
It's taken me over a year to grow this weird looking
thing. And it's taken me two years because the first year I completely failed at
growing this plant. This is a shower sponge.
Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening,
where it's my goal to help you grow a greener thumb and to shower yourself with
the plants that you grow. That's the only way we do it here at Epic Gardening.
And what we're looking at - this precarious precarious,
beautiful creature here - is a luffa gourd.
It is the first one I've ever successfully grown,
and I will tell you the trials and tribulations that I've gone through.
But let me just show you, it is hanging on by an absolute thread.
I was on Instagram doing a Live and I moved it and I noticed that these
two little fibers are holding it up. So what I'm going to do,
oh my gosh, I'm so scared.
What I'm going to do is remove it. I'm doing it right now.
I'm doing it right now. Okay, here we go. It's time. Your time is, oooh yes.
Okay. Let's peel this. We're out here in the front yard.
The sun is setting.
It's a beautiful time to open up this amazing plant that's taken me
so many years and so many challenges to grow. You know,
some things just don't come easy to you in the garden.
I can crush certain plants, dragonfruit no problem. Luffa was hard for me.
So let me tell you a little bit of a tale as far as what is so special about
this plant, why it can be difficult to grow.
So let's go back in time to 2019.
In 2019 on Instagram I got obsessed with the concept of growing your own shower
sponge because inside here, what you'll see soon in this video,
is the fiber. The fiber on the interior of this gourd can be dried,
sliced up and used as a shower sponge,
which a lot of people think comes from the ocean.
And there are sea sponges that are used for our bath products,
but this is the more common one. They're commercially grown for that purpose.
So I got obsessed with it.
I started the Luffa Challenge 2019 and we got gardeners from all around the
world to sign up and grow these luffa. Unbeknownst to me,
I did not know how much of a struggle growing this plant would be.
And I'll share some tips on growing it in just a second.
And so I really struggled. I had a transplant failure.
They do not like to be transplanted at all. I had someone back in my old garden,
my front yard garden, literally ripped it out when I was on vacation.
So that was a big bummer. Fortunately, I had a backup.
I transplanted that backup into the raised bed. And again, it just didn't take.
So despite being the creator of the Luffa Challenge 2019,
I was one of the biggest failures of the Luffa Challenge 2019.
And people from all around the world sent in these amazing luffa growing up
arches and growing up, you know, a bathroom wall, just hundreds of luffa.
And I'm sitting over here with nothing to show for it.
So I was pretty discouraged until I got to 2020. Now in 2020,
a lot of things changed globally all around world,
but also in the world of Epic Gardening, because we're in this new home here,
the Epic Homestead, which that happened out of the blue.
I didn't know that this was going to come up and do this.
So I was growing luffa and remember luffa hate to be transplanted.
What happened? I had to move and I was also shooting a TV show at the time.
There's a lot of things going on.
And so I transplanted the one luffa I had into this container right here.
But there's something that I didn't know about that luffa.
What I didn't know about that luffa is that it was in fact not a luffa,
it was a cucumber, which made me feel like a complete idiot. Here's the thing.
I bought the seeds 100% from a luffa supplier.
It was a luffa seed pack. I planted it. A cucumber came out.
I don't know what happened.
Maybe I got some weird seeds from China like a lot of people got earlier this
year. But whatever it was,
I was already in the dumps for 2020 before my friend Cheryl from
mybrentwoodgarden on Instagram, really stepped up and encouraged me.
She's fantastic at growing luffa. So I had one backup.
I put it in this system here.
This is a victory planter from Gardener's Supply Company.
For all intents and purposes it is a grow bag, you guys know I love grow bags,
that's sitting in a reservoir. So there's some water down here.
So I figured I'll transplant it in. We'll see if it works.
And it took forever to get going. I'm talking forever.
It's October right now. And man,
I should have had vines and vines and vines all over this thing,
did not even come close. So when I moved over to this new house,
I put it in the best area I possibly could. They want long, hot days,
full sun. They don't want to run out of water in the soil.
This is a tropical plant. So when you think of the tropics,
you think long hot days, you think relatively high humidity,
good amount of rainfall.
All of that equates to how you should care for this plant.
And then I ran into another problem. And that problem was one of pollination.
This is a plant that has male and female flowers that must be open at the same
time in order for a pollinator, or you if you want to hand pollinate it,
to actually take the pollen from the male and then fertilize the female.
And so I thought, wow, the first time I grow a luffa,
I actually get the plant going,
it won't pollinate because they won't be open at the same time. Fortunately,
the tides turned and I did start to see fruit set. This would be the fruit.
I saw it set and stay. Because what you'll see with luffa sometimes,
with poor or inconsistent pollination, is you'll see that flower,
the female flower with the little baby luffa behind it,
it will just fall off if it doesn't pollinate or if a bunch of other things go
wrong. So I got one to go. This is the first one right here of my entire life.
And it was hanging out right here as you guys saw.
So I figure why not now take you in to the Epic
moment of peeling this luffa? And let me tell you this right now,
it is one of the more satisfying things you'll see.
This is a little bit younger than most people would do it.
So I'll put a little clip of my friend Cheryl, from mybrentwoodgarden,
she has an amazingly satisfying luffa peel.
So check hers out first and then we'll get into mine.
So as you can see, she likes to peel her luffa really dry.
Mine is a little bit less dry, but still what you're looking for.
This one's nice and green.
You can clearly see this one's got some old blemishes on it,
kind of looks like it's old. The skin is a little bit separated out.
I don't know if you can tell, but you can see,
I can poke into this a little bit. Whereas this is nice and firm, quite hard.
And if you shake it,
you can even very lightly hear the luffa seeds jostling around.
That's your cue for when you need to peel it. So without further ado,
let's take this luffa into the Epic kitchen and peel it up.
All right, here we are. It is time for the culmination,
the journey of two years. This one single luffa. Hold on.
Let's go ASMR. Let's go a little bit, let's go a little sensual.
Let's go a little satisfactory. Here we go. Listen.
You can hear it. Oooooh, you can hear it shaking!
You can hear the seeds shaking. Building up the hype.
You only have one real shot at a good peel here.
So you can peel from this bottom part or you can peel from this top part.
I see a little spot here already. So I'm considering a top peel. Oh man,
I hope I don't mess this up. Okay. Okay. Anticipation is here guys.
Let's do this. Let's do this!
Remember to cultivate that Like button for this journey. Let's go.
Oh man. It's so hard to peel at the same time. Okay.
Here we go. Oh my,
I gotta be quiet. Oh my gosh.
Yes! Oh, is it coming up? Oh,
Oh my God.
That's exactly what I wanted it to be!!!
Look at that. Look at the seeds at the bottom.
Look, look, look, look, we're birthing.
We're birthing some luffa seeds here. Oh my God.
So this was picked slightly younger than you might normally pick,
but that's okay because it's still intact. You can see the fibers are intact.
You can see the structure, the formation is correct. It's good.
Really hoping the camera didn't lose focus there. Really hoping that.
But man, look at this thing. So stoked.
Now this has to dry. This does have to dry out,
but I've got some seeds that I can use for next year.
Maybe we'll do a little giveaway or something like that. But man, I am very,
very satisfied with what I just saw.
It was just everything I wanted in life really. I mean,
in this moment of my life, that's everything I wanted. Look at this specimen.
How crazy is it that you can just put something in the ground, specifically the,
well, hold on, let me get this for you. Look at this. Came off as one piece,
you can put these little luffa seeds in the ground.
You can put any seed in the ground and things come up out of the ground that you
can use for your life. You can put them in your body.
You can scrub your body with them. You can do whatever you want.
This is why gardening is so interesting to me.
Hopefully it's interesting to you. This needs to dry for a little bit.
I will be doing a full luffa grow guide next year.
So if you want to see more intense, in-depth, highly,
highly detailed and informative grow guides,
subscribe to the YouTube channel right now.
And if you're interested in everything else that's going on in the Epic
Gardening world, subscribe to my second channel,
which is called Epic Homesteading,
which will cover everything ancillary to gardening that has to do with what I
call a high-tech natural life. Like the best of modern society,
but also the intricacies and the joys of ancient life. Growing a luffa,
growing your own food, processing, harvesting, cooking, all that kind of stuff.
So until next time, so stoked about this guys! Thanks for tuning in.
Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.