Growing Luffa Gourds for Eating in Zone 5

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Growing luffa gourds is so easy in the south. Directly sow after last day of frost, give it enough water and fertilizer, and it’ll produce dozens of fruits until the next frost. All you need is one plant for your family.

But in zone 5, it’s so hard. Because luffa gourds need a long growing season. Most of the luffa varieties require 80-100 days to mature while we only have about 130-140 days without danger of frost. We got luffa seeds (the smooth luffa gourd grows to 12-14″, we aren’t sure which variety they are) from friends and tried twice, in 2019 and 2020but in both years we only harvested less than 10 fruits per plant. Dozens of baby fruits on the vine were wasted when the frost hit.

Also, a big problem of this smooth luffa variety is that it turns black during cooking. I tried a lot of tricks and tips that is supposed to prevent luffa from turning black but it didn’t help. One day I bought a couple of angular (ridged) luffa fruit from an Asian grocery store and they didn’t turn black at all. It made me want to try the angular luffa gourds.

So in 2021, We picked “Luffa Angled Gourd Hybrid BUAB KHOM”. The instructions says 50-60 days to maturity (after transplant). Also it won’t turn black during cooking. Below is the picture of stir fried luffa with summer squash.

It was a success! We will continue our experiment in 2022 and offer this variety of luffa seeds in our Amazon Store.

Let’s review our luffa experiment in 2021.

March 20, we started the seeds indoor. To help the seed germinate, the seeds should be soaked in warm water for 24 hours or gently clip the seed tip. Put the seeds in wet paper tower, keep it warm (85-90 degrees Fahrenheit). I just put the seeds in oven and left the oven light on. After the seeds sprouted, they were planted in 4″ nursery pots.

Notes: A lot of friends said that the luffa seeds were hard to germinate. Actually it is not. See the gemination temprature? 86-90 °F. If you start the seeds in March at room temprature, it might not germinate. Try scratching the seed surface, placing in a folded moist coffee filter or paper towel and sealing it in a baggie with a little air in it. Place on a heating mat (or in the oven with oven light on). See our loofa seeds germination test here.

May 20, after hardening off, one seedling was transplanted to the raised bed. We didn’t want to waste limited raised bed space because of the failure in previous years. The seedling was stunted by the cold weather and stoped growing for several weeks. It didn’t flower until late July. The first harvest was September 1st.  The picture below was taken on July 21, 2021. The luffa plant was in the middle of cucumbers. It was trained to grow horizontally to reach the netting on the other side of the house. The leaves marked with O are luffa leaves.

The next picture was taken on September 14. There are 5 fruits on the vine.

Same spot on October 9, 2021. Five new fruits after the last five had been harvested.

We got 19 fruits from this plant. Ten in September and nine in October. There are still more than a dozen baby fruit on the vine when the frost hit on Oct 19th.

These plants are very low maintenance; we didn’t prune the vines or pinch the excess male flowers. The only thing we did was to pinch the tip of the main vine once it reach the end of the netting so the lateral vines got to grow.

Luffa was planted in middle of cucumber plants so it got the same amount of water and fertilizer as China Long cucumbers:

Between May and September, apply worm tea once every two weeks.

Week 1 to Week 3 after transplanting. Schultz nursery plus slow release plant food (12-6-6), purchased at a local Menards store, 1/4 teaspoon per plant per week.

After flowering until late September. Applied Schultz Slow-Release Bloom Fertilizer (12-24-12), 1/2 teaspoon per plant per week.

We realize that the luffa has the potential to produce 35-40+ more fruits per vine. We just needed to start indoor earlier and transplant later. It requires a large pot to hold the plant indoor for several months, but it’s still totally doable because we only need one plant for our family. Click here to check out the blog regarding growing luffa sponge in zone 3. This is our goal in 2022. We will update this post in Spring.