lot of Luffa

Luffa harvest time! 

Some of my Luffas start rotting. This may be due to animal interactions or some bug. I'm not sure yet. Could be something else entirely. 

I harvested some of these early. The later harvests are a tougher sponge. 

I got somewhere round 50 my first harvest, there is still a lot more on the vine. It's under what I projected but still a lot more than last year. 

The thing is, the grower gets the slime! 

So the luffa has a slime all over it and the younger sponges you can squeeze a lot of that slime juice out.

It doesn't keep long, and Luffas are quick to rot in general if not processed quickly. 

The slime makes my skin and hair feel amazing. I get slime all over me during harvest, juice em over my head even. 

My larger ones were about the size of an ax handle in length. 

After the sponges are cleaned and mostly de seeded I string them on a line. 

]

Chopped to useful size pieces. 

Partway through the processing. This can be a time consuming process. 

Seeds get thumped out into a jar. I ended up not doing this with all of them, just got enough for next season for me and a bunch to share with friends. I figure I'll collect more seeds with the 2nd harvest. 

Seed jar. The mouth is just about as wide as the Luffa I grow typically get so I can thump them out on the rim.

Hanging up to dry. 

Made a drying rack out of bamboo. 

Takes longer than I thought to process, I need to come up with new methods.

Seeds

Pre cut unpeeled luffa

The more golden the better haha, Depends on what you want really. 

Washing the Luffa. Sticking my hands up to my elbows in that slime water was great. That slime, it puts me in a good mood for whatever reason. 

Some of the seeds floated to the top. The white ones were from the sponges that I harvested early. 

                                             Put a flat strainer in the sink to catch seeds. This is my 2nd season harvesting Luffa so I'm still on the learning curve. I could just look up how to go about it and I do sometimes on other crops. However I find that I learn more when I just play with it. I feel like I gain a deeper understanding of how the plant works. Sure it means I loose a lot of crops but it's cheaper than college haha. Experience is worth a lot more than book smarts anyhow.

These Luffa Sponges may one day be for sale. If or when that happens I'll post a link.


                                                    Word of wisdom for the day - 
  Pleasure is a beautiful harlot sitting in her chariot—
The four wheels are pride, gluttony, lust and foolishness. 
The two horses are prosperity and abundance.
The two drivers are idleness and security.
Her attendants and followers are guilt, grief, shame, 
    and often death and damnation!(taken from apples of gold)


Vid of the day