October 4, 2016

A Treatise on the Growth of a Luffa

I picked some more luffas to eat but Margaret from Homegrown Adventures mentioned trying to make sponges from them. Which was kind of a revelation for me since I've only ever seen them eaten, although I've definitely read about them being used for sponges.
These are some sweet peppers, mostly Jimmy Nordello but the pointy shorter fruits are a mystery since they don't resemble anything that we should be growing. With the seedling mix-up we'll probably never know.
Female luffa flower before the blossom has opened.
Angled luffa on the left, smooth loofah on the right.
Long unopened female blossom with a cluster of unopened male blossoms above.
The angled luffas are much more prolific then the one smooth variety we're growing this year. This one is growing outside the fence along the alley.
The vines are very aggressive and climb very well.
More alley luffa.
I wonder what the neighbors think of the weird vegetable growing outside our fence.
There's 7 luffas growing outside the fence and 26 inside the fence that I can tell.
12 trellises have been taken over by their vines, only 3 trellises were planted originally in luffa and bitter melon but they've taken over the whole row. I've given up trying to control them and tearing them off the fence.

They didn't start flowering till the last week of August, I think that record breaking wet month really helped them along. But it's less then 2 months until our first frost, so it's kind of iffy whether or not they'll mature in time.