When I worked in PNG the community were also using the luffa to establish orchids and bromeliads on; they gave them as gifts too. It was quite impressive because the fibres make it easy for the plants to grip onto and the luffa retains the moisture well without the risk of overwatering
I love how you compare the non-sustainability of sea sponges to the sustainability of loofahs. We stopped buying sea sponges when we learned about their origins. We use loofahs to wash our dishes and our bodies and when they get gross we bury them in the garden. However, loofahs are too rough to use to wash the car. I find that the younger, smaller loofahs are actually softer than the bigger ones.
Hey, you could chop the bitter gourd, add salt leave on for a few hours then squeeze out the liquid. Saute with onions, garlic and some chillies. There are a few videos on how to remove most of the bitterness. We add indian spices like ground roasted cumin to it. Then eat it with rice or flat bread.
Luffa sponges are amazing! They’re great for washing up your dishes, they are compostable when used up, and you can grow them in your garden. Super awesome!
Now I am scrambling to buy some plants somewhere. I have known about them for a while, but then Mark has to get on the RUclips and make them even more interesting. Everything in the garden is better when Mark talks about it!
I've been gardening for over 20 years up in Fairbanks, AK and I adore your channel. There are so many things I would love to grow that are not possible up here, but I have learned about lots of new things to try up here that would work. It would be great for us time restricted gardeners if you could give us an idea of how many days (weeks) it takes for a plant to get ready for you to harvest. With our long days up here our plants do grow pretty fast and I would love to grow some of the interesting long season plants like luffas if we could fit it in our summers. Thank you so much for all the time and care you put into your videos!
Great video - thanks. Difficult to find seed where I am in St. Louis, MO - found them on line. Growing them this year to add with Christmas baskets of jams/jellies. Grew them years ago. So easy to grow - no maintenance and no pests.
Ebay! I've gotten all my organic seeds from Ebay for years, and just ordered some luffa seeds from a farmer in Florida on there after watching this. Free shipping is pretty much the norm too, on Ebay, for seeds.
i am a luffa nut! this is my second year growing them-- going to dry them, peel them, trim them, bleach them, add a rope, and donate them to shelters in town! lovely sponges and produce a beautiful vine!
Hey big guy, I sure do appreciate your videos. I’m in subtropical Florida, USA. You have become my new favorite RUclips gardener. Thanks for sharing all this knowledge with us all. Keep it up!
Never knew luffa could be grown, always thought it was a synthetic and this video was a joke lol. Thought I'd watch to see what's what. Yeah, wow! I'm pretty amazed now :0
@@gabrielemagnabosco8926 The very first time I heard about Luffa and how to grow them was a garden book for children I got as a christmas gift in 1976.... But I could never find seeds and I thought they must be very exotic, if you live in Europe.
I actually got seeds out of them falling out of the ones in a store I picked them out and planted them and got free luffas because I never bought the original that the seeds fell out of.
@@karstent.66 well being usually very curious, for some reason I never questioned their origin... And it is quite strange, after all I grew up in sardinia, we could probably mass produce them down there. I guess I learned something new today, doesn-t get much better than that.
Oh my goodness! Ive been using loofahs & receiving them as gifts for years & never knew they came from an actual plant! Thank you so much for your informative instruction!
Someone shared this video with me, I had no idea they were a grown thing. I thought they came from the sea. You explained this topic really well, I'm a new fan now!
What I love about your channel is that we share the same climate and I can grow most of the veggies you have in your garden. The lufa plant is very popular here in Brazil 🇧🇷 it grows like a weed and sometimes we let it but thanks to you I have one more use for it besides scrubing my body. Thank you mate! 👍👍👍
That is really great that you are inspired to grow a garden. Just remember don't fight against nature, work with it the best you can. I am sure you will be a pro in no time at all.
I'm growing luffa this year for the first time (Chicago, IL suburb). I'm excited about using it dried for cleaning. Your video got me enthused about it again. Thanks! Great videos!
I do think they are fantastic. I planted some a few weeks ago and can hardly wait to see a full luffa. Thank you for posting such an informative video.
I put mine up in the green house. Two germinated. transplanted them at 6 inches tall in May, and I just harvested 36 luffas!! They grew over my tunnel, onto my shed, and into my horse chestnut tree! there are still about 5 still up in the tree.
A lot of people are saying they had no idea luffa sponges were grown. I was the other way around. I always knew these as "silk squash" where we had to pick them in time before they got too hard and fibrous to eat, unless you wanted to save them for seed. I had no idea, until later, that they were used as a bath product. For anyone who is having trouble finding seeds for this, it goes by many names: Luffa, loofah, silk squash, si gua (Chinese) and Chinese okra. I grow the _Luffa acutangula_ type, which is ridged and angular, whereas the one in this video is _Luffa cylindrica_ or the smooth luffa. Search online and you're sure to find it. Be warned that the seeds can have a low germination rate compared to other squashes, so you're going to want to start a lot. Once they come out, you grow them like cucumbers.
Gourds are yummy. In London if you see gourd vines coming over someone's garden fence, you know it's likely a Bangladeshi home. Its quite common in East London UK. Best cooked with chicken in a stew-like lightly spiced curry. In Bengali we call them water pumkin :)👍🏼
Used to grow these in our roof garden when we lived in Asia. Plant the seeds as soon as spring starts, then watch as they grow like crazy with the warmer weather. Provides a great shade crop that will die off when the weather cools down again.
I'm the only one in my house who likes the bitter gourd. We grow a very similar variety to yours. I fry it up with onion until they're a little crispy.
I never had any interest in eat them, but I was super excited to learn I could grow these even in zone 4 with enough lead-time on seed starting when I was looking for compostable sponge options for our household to switch too. And they last ages in use too, way longer than we get plastic sponges to hold up. :) This is the first year I've succeeded in getting full-sized gourds (didn't plant seeds early enough last year) and I am super excited to get to harvest them soon and clean them up for use.
Love your channel, very informative. My family grow them every summer, and they are very common where I'm from (South-East China). My family harvest approx. 100+ each summer, and some of them grow up to 1m long (depend on the species you have). We let some of them grow to full maturity and use the sponge for dishes and the seed for next year's planting.
The caraille (bitter gourd) have to be sautéed until it gets soft and you can cook it with other foods that can mask the bitterness. Something salty and/or something sweet. Eg. Salted fish and/or sweet corn.
Very nice. Reminded me of my childhood days spent in my village. We too used to have a similar vegetable garden for self-sufficiency. We used to give excessive vegetables to our neighbors.
I love bitter gourd . They are so tasty such as stir fried with eggs Stewed with fermented bamboo shoots, Fried crispy, or cooked salad with sesame sauce . You are blessed with a lot of it.
We are trying these in the U.K this year fingers crossed all goes well . I'm jealous of the length of your growing season down under , but I could never live there , too many stingy , bitey things for my liking . All the best Rob.
Good on ya Rob for giving them a go in your climate - you never know until you try and I've had many pleasant surprises in the garden for things that are not supposed to do well here. Cheers :)
Thanks. I have another thing to research now. We live in very different climates but your methods are inspirational. I’m a big fan of the gourd tunnel.
Love this video! I never knew what a gourd was although I have always seen the infamous gourd tunnel in your videos. I was never interested in it but now seeing how versatile it is, I would love to start growing my own sponges 🧽. Keep the educational content coming!
I was thinking the same for holding water in the garden during rain starved times. Also great for using to clean the dunny, that I can attest to, so many nylon bristles to avoid dropping into the environment.
Sitting here, just brought home a nice dinner and enjoying it while also enjoying a marathon of your videos!! One of my new favorite pastimes! :D Love ya tons, keep up the amazing and informative work!! Just ordered some organic luffa seeds after watching this - can't wait to put some down in my patch!
That's fantastic! We live in a flat atm with a little roof box. We're growing some courgettes, tomatos, carrots, beetroot etc. The plan is to move to the country in a year or two. I'll definitely give this a go! Thanks for the great video!
This is very cool. I like to germinate seeds in rockwool. I want to try using these sponges in the same way instead. I had no idea anything like this existed
Luffas are very interesting. They do take a while to clean & get the seeds out, from what I have read from others that have grown them. I might try growing some on my fence next year. You have such a beautiful garden. Thanks for sharing it & your knowledge with us. I enjoy your channel. Blessings, Love & Hugs from Vicki in Ft. Worth, Texas 🇨🇱🇺🇸👍❤️😊🙏🙏🙏🙏
Fascinating. I had no idea. I use these myself, oblivious to their origin. Just assumed they were some kind of sea sponge 🤣. 3am in Perth and I’ve learnt my 1 thing for the day already!!! Thanks Mark.
Hey mark! Was wondering if you could use a loaf to germinate other seeds? Looks like a great way to start seedlings? Love the channel, been watching for 6 months (obviously went back and watched all your old vids too!!)
Thank you for this video, i have just bought some Luffa seeds and i am going to be planting them this spring. Our weather on the south coast of South Africa is similar to yours in Victoria i think.
young luffa are great in stews or hollow out the center for stuffing with meat + steamed, and Chiuchow cuisine uses it to make a starchy pancake/omlette.
Thanks for the episode Mark! I’m trying these for the first time this year and am pretty excited. Do you think I could train a plant along a low fence or would it prefer to grow up an arbour?
We call those bottle gourds locally as "upo" and when medium green, use it as a vegetable sauteed with noodles and soup stock. Try to check for "upo recipes".
We have something similar to that here called hapu'u. Its supposedly edible, its more of a fern trunk that's free draining, that's good for putting plants like orchids in. They're getting hard to find, but when I was a child, there were all over the place.
Last time I grew a luffa gourd, I had one single plant. It grew straight up the corner of the house to a tv cable, about 15 feet or so, then across the cable towards the telephone pole another 20 feet or so, all from the one plant. It put out a huge amount of gourds, bees love the flowers, and harvested them to make sponges. Great plant to grow in a hot climate, but it sure takes up a lot of room, so prepare for them to overtake your garden!
My son-in-law grows loofah. I not only like them for bathing, but also for housecleaning. They make good scrubbers for tile and grout. He had one vine that he let go, and it grew up a tree. The loofahs hung from it like ornaments, but he did remove it before it grew too wild. I never thought of eating them.
We call that patola in my country. I don't like them and the only time I eat them is when it's sautéed with chayote leaves, garlic and squash. It's one of the best veggie combination I ever had.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
When I worked in PNG the community were also using the luffa to establish orchids and bromeliads on; they gave them as gifts too. It was quite impressive because the fibres make it easy for the plants to grip onto and the luffa retains the moisture well without the risk of overwatering
That's another great use for them! Thanks for sharing :)
I love how you compare the non-sustainability of sea sponges to the sustainability of loofahs. We stopped buying sea sponges when we learned about their origins. We use loofahs to wash our dishes and our bodies and when they get gross we bury them in the garden. However, loofahs are too rough to use to wash the car. I find that the younger, smaller loofahs are actually softer than the bigger ones.
Hey, you could chop the bitter gourd, add salt leave on for a few hours then squeeze out the liquid. Saute with onions, garlic and some chillies. There are a few videos on how to remove most of the bitterness. We add indian spices like ground roasted cumin to it. Then eat it with rice or flat bread.
but the bitterness is the best part! it has a sweet aftertaste which is enjoyable. my (chinese) wife cooks it often
I'd bitter gourd the same as luffa?
ruclips.net/video/9UPq0FanXPg/видео.html
@@silasmonk2458 no they're different plants
The bitter is the most helpful thing to detox
Luffa sponges are amazing! They’re great for washing up your dishes, they are compostable when used up, and you can grow them in your garden. Super awesome!
Now I am scrambling to buy some plants somewhere. I have known about them for a while, but then Mark has to get on the RUclips and make them even more interesting. Everything in the garden is better when Mark talks about it!
I'm always curious how someone can see this video and think, "I'm gonna thumbs down it".
Anyway, thanks for the lovely video.
Sweet Jesus! That funky old Orange thing by my grandma's tub was once alive. Creepy to learn but it explains why she refuses to throw it out.
ruclips.net/video/9UPq0FanXPg/видео.html
Lolol 🤣🤣
I grow my own loofahs and use those for the Coco liners in my planters plus we use them for a bath and scrubbing love them
So, the luffa fibers create a secure nursery for the seeds to germinate? What an amazing design!
Wdym design?
@@user-ik2yi4fm1u God mate, jk.
I love nature, its all an incredible design!!!
I might just plant one this winter and see what happens
@@user-ik2yi4fm1u By God
I've been gardening for over 20 years up in Fairbanks, AK and I adore your channel. There are so many things I would love to grow that are not possible up here, but I have learned about lots of new things to try up here that would work. It would be great for us time restricted gardeners if you could give us an idea of how many days (weeks) it takes for a plant to get ready for you to harvest. With our long days up here our plants do grow pretty fast and I would love to grow some of the interesting long season plants like luffas if we could fit it in our summers. Thank you so much for all the time and care you put into your videos!
Oh gosh I can’t wait to try this!! My parrot also LOVES chewing and destroying these so this’ll be fantastic THANKYOU❤️
"your garden is so lovely. What are you growing over here??" "Bird toys lol"
Wot a great use for them, parrot toys.👋😃
Captain.Toaster HAHAHA YES omg, and sponges for baths 😂 they’ll think I’m crazy till they see the magic
Alice yess!! Rhea’s favourite the chew to shreds🙌🏻🥰
Ohhhh thanks for the great idea🙃
You can also use them in your soil. Will help retain water. God bless
Top tip! Thanks :)
A great way to use up old and extra luffas, since these plants are so productive!
Your channel singlehandedly got me gardening. Thankyou, Mark!
Great video - thanks. Difficult to find seed where I am in St. Louis, MO - found them on line. Growing them this year to add with Christmas baskets of jams/jellies. Grew them years ago. So easy to grow - no maintenance and no pests.
Ebay! I've gotten all my organic seeds from Ebay for years, and just ordered some luffa seeds from a farmer in Florida on there after watching this. Free shipping is pretty much the norm too, on Ebay, for seeds.
Thank you so much for uploading your videos. They always cheer me up and inspire to live a more self-sufficient life! :)
Thank you Nicole for supporting and inspiring me! :)
i am a luffa nut! this is my second year growing them-- going to dry them, peel them, trim them, bleach them, add a rope, and donate them to shelters in town! lovely sponges and produce a beautiful vine!
Hey big guy, I sure do appreciate your videos. I’m in subtropical Florida, USA. You have become my new favorite RUclips gardener. Thanks for sharing all this knowledge with us all. Keep it up!
Never knew luffa could be grown, always thought it was a synthetic and this video was a joke lol. Thought I'd watch to see what's what.
Yeah, wow! I'm pretty amazed now :0
Tbh same, I always thought they were some polymeric mesh in a sponge shape.
Turns out it is polymeric but not in the sense I thought of.
@@gabrielemagnabosco8926 The very first time I heard about Luffa and how to grow them was a garden book for children I got as a christmas gift in 1976....
But I could never find seeds and I thought they must be very exotic, if you live in Europe.
I actually got seeds out of them falling out of the ones in a store I picked them out and planted them and got free luffas because I never bought the original that the seeds fell out of.
@@karstent.66 well being usually very curious, for some reason I never questioned their origin... And it is quite strange, after all I grew up in sardinia, we could probably mass produce them down there.
I guess I learned something new today, doesn-t get much better than that.
Same. when i saw the title of the video I was like, wait a minute. its not April fools day.
Oh my goodness! Ive been using loofahs & receiving them as gifts for years & never knew they came from an actual plant! Thank you so much for your informative instruction!
Someone shared this video with me, I had no idea they were a grown thing. I thought they came from the sea.
You explained this topic really well, I'm a new fan now!
What I love about your channel is that we share the same climate and I can grow most of the veggies you have in your garden. The lufa plant is very popular here in Brazil 🇧🇷 it grows like a weed and sometimes we let it but thanks to you I have one more use for it besides scrubing my body. Thank you mate! 👍👍👍
I am new at gardening but l started 3 months but l am learing more things to teach people that are inspired
Hoe many mothes now?
Lol but congrats man ive always wanted to grow stuff but I don't have the energy it feels
That is really great that you are inspired to grow a garden. Just remember don't fight against nature, work with it the best you can. I am sure you will be a pro in no time at all.
@@crazygoatlady4287 yes bugs are eating all off my staff
ruclips.net/video/9UPq0FanXPg/видео.html
Maybe invest in some English lessons so you can do that better
I live in nyc and watch all ur videos . I’ve been growing vegetables on my fire escape for 3 years now. Thanks for all the tips
That's a dedicated veg growing example (fire escape) I love it when people grow anywhere they can! Cheers :)
I have been growing them for three years. It's an amazing and very useful plant.
Wow, I had no idea that these were grown in the ground. What an interesting video, Mark! Good day, mate!
Is this the Krusty krab?
Patrcia Clemons No! This is Patrick! *hangs up phone*
I'm growing luffa this year for the first time (Chicago, IL suburb). I'm excited about using it dried for cleaning. Your video got me enthused about it again. Thanks! Great videos!
Thanks for great info on growing loofah. My first year adding the amazing vegetable gourd.
They look like a good growing medium.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I first saw the budding Luf... be like a natural hydroponic media almost.
I do think they are fantastic. I planted some a few weeks ago and can hardly wait to see a full luffa. Thank you for posting such an informative video.
I put mine up in the green house. Two germinated. transplanted them at 6 inches tall in May, and I just harvested 36 luffas!! They grew over my tunnel, onto my shed, and into my horse chestnut tree! there are still about 5 still up in the tree.
In Asia that is vegetable, when young it can be stir-fried, put on soups. It can also be added to fish, pork or chicken dishes.
A lot of people are saying they had no idea luffa sponges were grown. I was the other way around. I always knew these as "silk squash" where we had to pick them in time before they got too hard and fibrous to eat, unless you wanted to save them for seed. I had no idea, until later, that they were used as a bath product. For anyone who is having trouble finding seeds for this, it goes by many names: Luffa, loofah, silk squash, si gua (Chinese) and Chinese okra. I grow the _Luffa acutangula_ type, which is ridged and angular, whereas the one in this video is _Luffa cylindrica_ or the smooth luffa. Search online and you're sure to find it. Be warned that the seeds can have a low germination rate compared to other squashes, so you're going to want to start a lot. Once they come out, you grow them like cucumbers.
Gourds are yummy. In London if you see gourd vines coming over someone's garden fence, you know it's likely a Bangladeshi home. Its quite common in East London UK. Best cooked with chicken in a stew-like lightly spiced curry. In Bengali we call them water pumkin :)👍🏼
Used to grow these in our roof garden when we lived in Asia. Plant the seeds as soon as spring starts, then watch as they grow like crazy with the warmer weather. Provides a great shade crop that will die off when the weather cools down again.
I'm the only one in my house who likes the bitter gourd. We grow a very similar variety to yours. I fry it up with onion until they're a little crispy.
Best gardening channel by far ! I'm going to grow these next summer
I never had any interest in eat them, but I was super excited to learn I could grow these even in zone 4 with enough lead-time on seed starting when I was looking for compostable sponge options for our household to switch too. And they last ages in use too, way longer than we get plastic sponges to hold up. :)
This is the first year I've succeeded in getting full-sized gourds (didn't plant seeds early enough last year) and I am super excited to get to harvest them soon and clean them up for use.
Love your channel, very informative. My family grow them every summer, and they are very common where I'm from (South-East China). My family harvest approx. 100+ each summer, and some of them grow up to 1m long (depend on the species you have). We let some of them grow to full maturity and use the sponge for dishes and the seed for next year's planting.
The caraille (bitter gourd) have to be sautéed until it gets soft and you can cook it with other foods that can mask the bitterness. Something salty and/or something sweet. Eg. Salted fish and/or sweet corn.
Yess! It's also good with tofu and sesame. Really refreshing in the summer
Amazing! I’m one of those dumb asses whom thought they were a marine plant. Luv this gardener / propagater dude. Such a happy soul.
Thank you!! I always wondered how to grow them. My mom used to cook a simple loofah noodle soup with eggs. Delicious
Luffa, in the Appalachian Mountains of the USA are sold as “Appalachian Dishrag Gourd”. Mostly used over a carport to shade the Chevy.
It is a wonderful vegetable... Absolutely love it... using it as a sponge is secondary ... Primarily it is awesome vegetable
I'm in Tennessee and you're down under but you are like a neighbor. Have a bountiful wonderful day.
Thank you for this video. I am wanting to grow some in Western Australia so this is handy 👌👍
Very nice. Reminded me of my childhood days spent in my village. We too used to have a similar vegetable garden for self-sufficiency. We used to give excessive vegetables to our neighbors.
I noticed that 12 people give a thumbs down to this video. there is absolutely nothing in this video that is disagreeable.
You said it, "absolutely fascinating"!!
I was floored with this information! Thank you for sharing.
I have plenty in my garden in kilifi, Kenya. They grow prolifically, but had no idea I could eat them!! Thanks
I love bitter gourd .
They are so tasty such as stir fried with eggs
Stewed with fermented bamboo shoots,
Fried crispy, or cooked salad with sesame sauce .
You are blessed with a lot of it.
They are so much fun to grow and use. Fascinating plant isn’t it!
We are trying these in the U.K this year fingers crossed all goes well .
I'm jealous of the length of your growing season down under , but I could never live there , too many stingy , bitey things for my liking . All the best Rob.
Good on ya Rob for giving them a go in your climate - you never know until you try and I've had many pleasant surprises in the garden for things that are not supposed to do well here.
Cheers :)
UK grower, I wonder if it would be possible outside a greenhouse, just in the garden. Could become my new kitchen sponge.
@@simock03 I've got mine in the polytunnel
@@shuntersharpy Thanks Rob. I shall hold off then, until I manage to upgrade my garden with a polytunnel. :)
I use luffa sponges since some years already, and they are great.
Ok so I’ve been watching your videos and have decided you need to come and help me set up my vege gardens.
Thanks. I have another thing to research now. We live in very different climates but your methods are inspirational. I’m a big fan of the gourd tunnel.
Love this video! I never knew what a gourd was although I have always seen the infamous gourd tunnel in your videos. I was never interested in it but now seeing how versatile it is, I would love to start growing my own sponges 🧽. Keep the educational content coming!
You can also use to a small slice to do dishes etc! I'm gonna look for seeds next year, thanks!
Ooo we have a lot of these here in Vietnam!!!
I love this channel. Thank you for all your efforts.
Old ones could be cut up and put at the bottom of pots. It may help hold water for the plant. I plan on trying.
I was thinking the same for holding water in the garden during rain starved times. Also great for using to clean the dunny, that I can attest to, so many nylon bristles to avoid dropping into the environment.
Sitting here, just brought home a nice dinner and enjoying it while also enjoying a marathon of your videos!! One of my new favorite pastimes! :D Love ya tons, keep up the amazing and informative work!!
Just ordered some organic luffa seeds after watching this - can't wait to put some down in my patch!
TIL! Thank you for the garden lesson this morning!
That's fantastic! We live in a flat atm with a little roof box. We're growing some courgettes, tomatos, carrots, beetroot etc. The plan is to move to the country in a year or two. I'll definitely give this a go! Thanks for the great video!
My Grandma would grow these. Me and my siblings would use them to bathe with. They are so good for scrubbing feet too. I wish i had some
I was not aware of where they come from. I'm thinking about growing them now. good job my man. thank you very much.
I learn more everyday on this channel. I never knew my helpful soap buddy was also a part-time plant.
This is very cool. I like to germinate seeds in rockwool. I want to try using these sponges in the same way instead. I had no idea anything like this existed
Wow your luffa garden so outstanding in my look good job sir thats awesome 👍👍
Luffas are very interesting. They do take a while to clean & get the seeds out, from what I have read from others that have grown them. I might try growing some on my fence next year. You have such a beautiful garden. Thanks for sharing it & your knowledge with us. I enjoy your channel. Blessings, Love & Hugs from Vicki in Ft. Worth, Texas 🇨🇱🇺🇸👍❤️😊🙏🙏🙏🙏
I grow my own lupus and use them for my Coco liners in my pot
..and THIS.. is a total joy to watch 👍🤗
6:21 yes. I agree with that.
Really fascinating! It's the platapus of the gardening world!
Tarpon springs (the picture of the sponge boat) is down the street from me. Funny thing many of the stores also sell Luffas.
You continue to amaze me , thank you so much for the enlightenment I wish I could live next-door and learn everything
that veggie taste good, you can cook it when the fruit is still young
ruclips.net/video/9UPq0FanXPg/видео.html
Fascinating. I had no idea. I use these myself, oblivious to their origin. Just assumed they were some kind of sea sponge 🤣. 3am in Perth and I’ve learnt my 1 thing for the day already!!! Thanks Mark.
Yeah!! Got my tee shirts ordered with new design!! Thanks
Cool! Thank you :)
Hey mark! Was wondering if you could use a loaf to germinate other seeds? Looks like a great way to start seedlings?
Love the channel, been watching for 6 months (obviously went back and watched all your old vids too!!)
I love bitter melon (or gourd) stir fry with black bean/garlic paste, a little ginger and soy sauce.
Thank you for this video, i have just bought some Luffa seeds and i am going to be planting them this spring. Our weather on the south coast of South Africa is similar to yours in Victoria i think.
Hi, where did you get the seeds? I would love to get some. We are also here at the south coast of SA.
Just shared to my loofah/luffa group on Facebook.
young luffa are great in stews or hollow out the center for stuffing with meat + steamed, and Chiuchow cuisine uses it to make a starchy pancake/omlette.
What a fantastic unique story that was thx Mark
Thanks for the episode Mark!
I’m trying these for the first time this year and am pretty excited. Do you think I could train a plant along a low fence or would it prefer to grow up an arbour?
Thanks for sharing. I never knew this before. 😳 cool video
They would be amazing compost stimulants. The structure would host so many microorganisms as it decomposes.
We call those bottle gourds locally as "upo" and when medium green, use it as a vegetable sauteed with noodles and soup stock. Try to check for "upo recipes".
I think I might use it as mulch or extra fill for my raised beds!
I had no idea! That is so cool!
some day we'll grow them again. We did it successfully one year. It was awesome
We have something similar to that here called hapu'u. Its supposedly edible, its more of a fern trunk that's free draining, that's good for putting plants like orchids in. They're getting hard to find, but when I was a child, there were all over the place.
Oh man, a friend gave me some luffa seeds last year and I totally forgot about them until this video! Now I’m off to find/make more garden space...
Last time I grew a luffa gourd, I had one single plant. It grew straight up the corner of the house to a tv cable, about 15 feet or so, then across the cable towards the telephone pole another 20 feet or so, all from the one plant. It put out a huge amount of gourds, bees love the flowers, and harvested them to make sponges. Great plant to grow in a hot climate, but it sure takes up a lot of room, so prepare for them to overtake your garden!
My son-in-law grows loofah. I not only like them for bathing, but also for housecleaning. They make good scrubbers for tile and grout. He had one vine that he let go, and it grew up a tree. The loofahs hung from it like ornaments, but he did remove it before it grew too wild. I never thought of eating them.
Agreed. I love growing luffa! Its an easy gift and always I have sponges
That was really cool. You are one of the most interesting persons on RUclips.
Put the loafa in a Pringles can melt soap pore over and fill the can once set cut into slices and you have some scrubbing soap
I grew loofahs a few years ago. Until I saw them at my friend's house I thought they came from the ocean. It was a very fun plant to grow
Oh - thank you for using that spelling; 'luffa' was driving me crazy. I've known them as loofahs my whole life (73 years)
Really cool to avoid plastic
We call that patola in my country. I don't like them and the only time I eat them is when it's sautéed with chayote leaves, garlic and squash. It's one of the best veggie combination I ever had.