How to grow a loofah sponge and my first time experience growing them.
So, how do you grow a loofah? I thought loofahs grew in the ocean.
One day I was taking a shower and I noticed on the side of my shampoo bottle that it said you can grow your own loofahs. Huh! Amazing. I learned something new, so my creativity side said, “Lets grow some loofahs!” and that’s what I did.
This is my journey on how I grew my first loofahs in my backyard. I explain what loofahs are, how to grow them yourselves and how to use them.
Stay tuned till the end I have a YouTube video if you’d like to watch it.
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How to grow a loofah sponge and my first time experience growing them.
What is a loofah?
A loofah is a plant of the gourd family. They have long fruits that grow on vines that can reach up to 30 feet long. When the loofah is young it can be eaten. When it matures it can be used as a natural sponge with its fibrous insides.
It also goes by luffa, loufa, loufah.
Loofahs also love hot weather and long growing times. Usually around 150 to 200 days. My loofahs only made it to 183 days before a freeze came. They were still a little immature to be picked but I still got some good sponges.
Here is a hardiness zone map. It helped me know when to start to plant my loofahs. I live in zone 6.
I started my loofahs from seeds. The ones I used are pictured below.
Starting the plants from seeds right before the last frost inside gave me the best chance at a longer growing season with them. May 6th was the day I started the seeds.
You can find the seeds that I used here.
The supplies
I gathered up a greenhouse kit, my seeds and a warming mat. I also discovered that they like to be kept warm.
VIVOSUN Durable Waterproof Seedling Warming Heat Mat
The seeds are black, almost like a watermelon seed.
Prepping the little green house was easy. Just soak the little dirt pellets in water and they soak it up and quickly expand.
What they look like ready to have the seeds placed in them.
5-6-19
I read along when I was doing my research that loofah seeds can be hard to germinate. So I did an experiment. One place I read said to soak the seeds and then clip the edge off. Supposedly it helps them sprout faster. Half of the seeds I soaked and clipped and the other half I left as is and planted them all.
The right side had the clipped seeds and the left side had the regular seeds. I just put them in about half way. Side note. I did think that I put some of them to far down because they didn’t grow good. The ones that I put closer to the surface with a light cover of dirt did better.
This is the heat pad that I used.
To my surprise, it worked! The seeds on the right sprouted quicker. I left the heat pad turned on the whole time they were germinating.
The heat pad worked great too!
A sprout!
5-10-19
Hello there! I was soooo happy to see a couple sprouted, I was getting worried because it seemed to take a while. It can take a while for them to germinate. Like a week or two.
5-13-19
When the loofah seedlings got to tall for the greenhouse I transplanted them. I made some containers out of newspaper. That way I could easily transplant into the ground. Apparently, they are finicky little plants and you could lose them from transplant shock. I learned that. I did lose a couple.
5-19-19
During the day I took them outside to try and harden them off and brought them in at night since it was still too cold for them. I’m not a professional gardener, but I try. I was doing what I thought would give them the best outcome.
Planting day
6-1-19
Today I planted the loofahs. I used potting mix that I mixed with the soil in the ground that I loosened up. I also added some trellises for the loofah vines to climb on for support. Not pictured here but I did put some black mulch on top of the soil. This is to keep the soil nice and warm for them. They should be planted where they get sun most of the day.
Freshly planted and supported. I watered them a little bit and now we just have to wait.
7-10-19
These are the loofah vines about a month after planting them. These ones are doing nicely. Just vines and leaves so far. I did loose a couple I believe due to shock. I ended up having 3 loofah plants in the end.
Sturdy garden trellis like these for climbing plants are best.
Another view of the sturdy vines starting their way up the trellis.
8-9-19
These vines got long! Everyday or so I would check on them and I would help train the vines around the trellis and eventually the porch railing. Also, checking for flowers but didn’t get any yet.
Flowered
8-29-19
Finally! A few flowers started to emerge. They are a beautiful yellow colored flower.
Here are some male flowers.
These are the female flowers.
I was getting concerned about my growing season getting cut short by a frost so I started to help them by hand pollenating them.
Baby loofahs!
9-18-19
Some baby loofahs. If you look closely you can see a bee on the flower doing his job. The bees really loved these flowers.
A video I uploaded to my Facebook page when I was updating the progress on September 8th. See below.
Lots of loofahs
Growing along nicely. I got a good amount for my first crop.
While the loofah is growing it is a dark green color, like a cucumber. They say the best time to harvest them is when they start to dry out on the vine and turn a lighter green/brown color. I had to harvest mine a little early because a freeze warning came out and I didn’t want to lose my first crop to the cold weather.
Just hanging out in the sun.
A close up of a female loofah flower.
Getting bigger.
Getting close to harvest
10-10-19
As the nights were getting cooler. I felt it would be good to trim some of the newer formed loofahs off. They would of have never made it to maturity. That way the plant could focus its energy on the ones that I wanted to harvest.
Frost?
I received my first frost warning. I got scared that I would lose them so I thought up the crazy idea to put my socks on them to keep them warm during the night. It must of worked because they were fine the next day.
Harvest
11-9-19
After the frost warning came a freeze warning and I didn’t want to take any chances so I cut them down. This is the harvest I ended up with from the three loofah plants.
Sponge time
Getting ready to peel. The ones I peeled first were not dried out all the way and still a little immature but they did produce good natural sponge fibers.
I started it with a knife. The skin was a little hard to peel but not impossible.
All peeled.
This was the second one I peeled. For some reason the seeds that I bought looked like they might of had two varieties in it. One loofah was dark green and the other ones were light green and longer.
I needed to wash all the pulp and seeds out of it. I ran it under water till it was all gone. Some people say use a hose but in this case I couldn’t because it was too cold outside.
Since my loofahs were a little immature, I didn’t save the seeds for next year. I believe they are only viable to replant when they have matured more and turned black.
Update: The loofahs that I left out to dry after I picked them did have some black seeds.
Ahh, fibers
You can see the fibers now that the pulp was washed out.
I decided to cut them into smaller pieces to be used as scrubbing sponges.
I soaked them in some bleach water. This helped remove any more pulp stuck in it, keep any mold from growing on it and help whiten them up.
Because I want to store all of them and give some as gifts I baked them at the lowest temperature my oven had to dry them out all the way.
Beautiful loofah sponge
Finally, my beautiful loofah sponges. I did it! I cant wait to grow more next year. This first time experience has helped me so I know what to do better next time I plant them.
What can loofahs be used for?
- Wash dishes
- Use in the shower
- Cleanse, exfoliate, massage
- Put them in soap molds and pour soap around them, soap on a rope
- Give as gifts
If you are interested in learning about some different gourds and their useful benefits check out Jersey’s blog about Growing Gourds for Birdhouses in Containers for Profit.
Watch my YouTube video on how I grew my loofahs.
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I loved the sock idea! That was so clever!
WOW. This is incredible. Nice work! Thank you!
The heated mat is oh so nice! You did an excellent job! Sometimes these guys can be very fickled to grow 🙂
I learned a lot. Thank you for sharing your experience and details!
What a process! This whole post is mind blowing. I had no idea I could grow my own loofahs! So cool. This is 100% going on my bucket list of things I want to try out.
I love this idea of growing your own loofah sponges! This encouraged me to try that on my own!