Loofahs

A failed experiment in boycotting store bought sponges

Last winter, as I began to think of life without the big corporations I rely on for cleaning supplies (and everything else), I happened upon an Instagram video of a woman growing loofahs. I watched as she plucked her loofahs from her beautiful garden arch and then processed them to use as sponges.

Two thoughts popped into my head:

1. Loofahs don’t come from the ocean?

2. I can grow dozens of loofahs and never have to buy a sponge from a big box store again!

The instagrammer has been lost to my algorithm that now favors videos of baking and ancient axe restoration (and no, I don’t know how I ended up there) but I remember she lived in the south and grew more loofahs than she knew what to do with. I dreamed of such loofah riches. So, I brought the loofah idea to The Quad Gardening Committee and everyone was on board. We started the seeds in late winter/early spring and they thrived!

Then, when we could begin planting outside, we transferred them to our raised beds with an arch and I eagerly waited for them to take over and start producing. The plants struggled initially but did eventually begin to grow up the arches but not a single loofah appeared and we gave them up for dead. And then, much to our surprise, a single loofah appeared in the middle of September. I was so excited but I also knew it would be a race against time—would the loofah mature before the first frost? Thus began Loofah Watch 2025 on our Instagram account.

Last Thursday, I picked the FOUR loofahs on our vines to beat the forecasted frost the following day. They were not mature but I read that you can bake them and then harvest the sponges. So, that’s what I did.

Left to Right: fresh picked loofahs, baked loofahs, a-peeling loofah, immature loofah beyond hope, some rot?, final yield

I was pretty excited about our small yield and began to research loofahs so that we could increase our yield next year and I learned some very interesting things I wish I’d known before growing them:

1. They take 200 days to fully mature.

2. They are a tropical plant.

You may recall that we live in Minnesota. Suddenly, our loofah journey made a lot more sense. I shared this information with the Gardening Committee and suggested that perhaps different plants might better serve our space and energy.

But we will each get a couple of usable loofahs, though I must confess that I was drying them on a cookie sheet and, while kitten-proofing our place for a feline visitor, I put them in the oven and forgot about them…until yesterday when I preheated the oven to 400 degrees to make cookies. Now, we have roasted loofahs and I have some regrets.

What fun thing should we grow next year? Bananas? Pineapples? Coffee beans?

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Pictures from around The Quad…

Left to Right: My birthday pie, Pasta dinner with our friend Julie, Kristen's birthday pie, I made a sorry cherry loaf with our cherries, the garlic is ready, lemongrass harvest, sunrise, Cyclops, and Halloween is almost here!