Articles & Resources

Take a Bath with your Luffa!
By Alan Gorkin, Director of Horticulture

If you've recently walked past the Nature Center's Rainbow Garden (our children's gardening area behind the greenhouse), you may have noticed a vigorous vine with bright yellow flowers growing into the adjacent river birch. This fast growing relative of pumpkins and a squash family member (cucurbitaceae) is none other than the luffa gourd, dishcloth glourd, or vegetable sponge. Planted from seed by instructor Catherine Graham-Kohler with her young gardeners, it produced harvestable fruits this October.

The name Luffa (often misspelled loofah) is a modification of Luff, the Arabic name for these plants. Once the surrounding flesh is removed, the remarkable interior fibrous skeleton can be used as a pot scrubber or skin exfoliating tool. In Asia, the tender succulent young luffas are prized and cooked like squash.

Luffas are easily grown from seed, and grow like cucumber on a fence or trellis. Give them 110 days of growing season, a lot of room, and get out of the way!

Look for Luffa seed and sponges in our gift shop. We hope to have home grown ones next year supplied by the our young gardeners who participate in our Rainbow Garden program. Nature Center Luffa will be a great addition to the honey we sell in our gift shop that is provided by our very own bee hives.

If you have an aspiring young gardener in the family, be sure to enroll them in our spring, summer or fall Rainbow Garden classes. Interesting vegetable crafts, cooking with our harvest and learning to plant, weed, water and harvest their own garden plot is explored in every session. Our spring program will include drying cabbages into walking sticks and growing giant pumpkins. Check our website this spring for information about the next Rainbow Garden.

How to make and grow your own Luffa!

1. This annual requires a long growing season of frost free weather, so start early in the spring or start seedlings indoors and then transplant them outside. The vine needs a lot of room and will produce beautiful yellow flowers all summer.

2. Pick the fruit just after the first frost kills the vine.Cut off the outer skin and milk it repeatedly by squeezing it from the middle towards the ends to remove the fleshy substance inside. Seeds for your next planting will come out as well.

3. If the sponge is discolored, soak it in warm water and bleach for 5 minutes. Add some rope and you have your very own luffa shower sponge! Makes a great Christmas gift!