Horseshoe WE need your help!!

We need your help in harvasting out Luffa's!! Can you give me and Dave any pointer's on the how to's?? This is the first time I have grown them and Dave said the same thing. but we need to know what to do with them "after they are done growing" I need all the help I can get, because I really want these to turn out right.
TIA
Mollybee

Thanks for posting this for me, Mollybee. :-)

Dave

O you are VERY welcome Dave, I just hope ole horseshoe comes thru for us. I am real excited about the "finished" product on this one. They also make nice gifts too. Keep us posted on your biggest one, and I will do the same. I guess it's too late for a friendly contest to see who can grow the biggest luffa, because hey you already won!! so far I only have 2 that are of good size but your's is still bigger.LOL

Well, here I is! But first I must brag...my biggest luffa this yr is now 24 inches long, a tad over 5 inches wide at the blossom end! Perhaps I'll save seeds from this'n for future yrs. As for preserving them, right now just let it grow, let it grow, let it grow (sung to the tune of Let it Snow). Ya'll have a couple of options. You can let them grow till death, then let them just dry on the vine. If the vine is already dead you can choose to pick it now and dry it somewhere airy. Either way the skin will get dry, brownish, and crispy. This may take several wks to a month or so. At this point you can peel off the skin by hand. If you don't want to wait till the sponge is dry I've taken them while still green and put them in a 5 gal bucket of water and let them soak...the skin gets real soggy and yucky (and a bit slimy) and you can sorta scape it off. Much rinsing is needed and the sponge will be soft due to its' wetness. For facial sponges you can cut each luffa into 3 or 4 sections, crosswise, or just leave them whole...I usually leave a whole one in the shower. (In the past I've soaked them in a bleach/water solution for a bit and it not only makes them softer and not quite so coarse but makes them whiter.) (I would also recommend if you use them in the bathroom to remember to wash them from time to time so they don't harbour any bacteria...I just throw 'em in the washer.) Oh yeh, as for getting the seeds out...if you decided to cut them up they'll fall out easier. If you want to leave them whole you'll notice 5 or 6 or more tunnels that run the length of the luffa...the seeds are not IN these tunnels but trapped inside the fibers... When the luffa is very dry you can knock it on something hard (table, fence post, whatever) and it will dislodge the seeds and they will fall out the end via these tunnels ...(when the sponge is wet the seeds tend to stick inside) No fermentation is necessary if you want to save the seeds, just dry them and store.

There ya go - everything you ever wanted to know about Luffas. Thanks Shoe!

Dave

Thank you soooo much horseshoe!! you are the greatest!! Now I feel like a pro. I guess everyone on my christmas list knows what they are getting now LOL Again Thank you for the info because I was really clueless on the the how to's.
Your the tops!!
Mollybee

Dear Luffa Lovers....
The other day one of my giant luffas (just over 24 inches long, but not as big around as some of the other ones) fell from the vine (or maybe a chicken pecked it off. Or maybe a fox knocked it off while trying to peck a chicken...or maybe, well never mind). Anyway, since it was green I found a waste basket big enuff to fill with water and submerge the luffa in it...had to weight it down with a piece of railroad flat iron. Usually I let them soak a few days to a week to get the skins to peel off. Today I noticed the weight, and the luffa, was in the bottom of the container. When I retrieved it I started to peel the green off thinking it was soft enuff to expose the sponge inside. What a bummer. For the first time since I started growing these things I've never seen what I was looking at. This luffa almost had NO inside! It had a bit of fiber, but not anything to resemble a luffa sponge. This baby was mostly air! Lots of seeds, no sponge.
Seems to me either it had grown too fast on the outside and simply looked impressive, AND/Or it just needed more time to finish its internal growing. I'm writing this hoping to inform ya'll to NOT pick those bigguns yet! Let them mature on the vine for whopper sponges! (I wish I would've let it dry out now so I could see just how much actual internal growth it had accomplished.) By the way, your smaller ones may be just fine if you choose to pick and soak them before they dry...in the past they have been for me anyway. Good luck with your harvests! Hope ya'll will post your results.

Horseshoe: There's a lot of variation in luffas. I've had some with 3 channels down the middle, for seeds, some with 4. Some have no connecting part between channels, just one big seed cavity. In Japan they even have one that's round! like a ball. Some they flatten out to make soles for Organically grown flip-flops. LOL