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Where to start? Well, There are some recommendations to prune the vine of laterals, and others say to keep the first 4 good looking laterals and prune everything else. I don't prune anything. Or do much of anything else except make sure that for the most part they're off the ground.Yet, they do good. In the past, my experience has been that each plant will produce quite a few loofa if left alone. About 20 years ago I read that you can eat the young ones, but they tasted horrid, so I never finished the first one, and haven't tried again.
So, the first picture is a solitary loofa that I planted and has spread 70 ft, plus 8 ft from the ground to the wire, and another 15 ft, more or less, up the tree on the right side of the picture. So, 93 ft, at last measure. I feel positive that it'll end up at least 100 ft, but thats from one end of one lateral th the other end of another lateral. Still, a hundred ft of growth since sometime in June, when it finally started growing.
OK, here is the male flower. It grows as a cluster, and they open one at a time. There are about 30 flowers per cluster, so there will be one open almost daily for about 30 days. There are a whole lot of male clusters, and they start weeks before the females even form. So, if you ever mess with loofa, you'll be freaking out at first.
Here is a tiny female, at least a week from flowering. Bad picture, I know, but the rest of the pics with tiny ones are even worse.
Lot of males, growing on the side of the overhang. I guess tthey're hoping that when the wind blows, it'll blow their pollen on some open female. Most of the time, the males are on a stem, higher than the rest of the plant, so that when pollen falls, it'll drift around and have a better chance of finding a female.
Here is a female just a few days away from opening her flower. Note a larger, already pollinated and growing fruit behind her.
Here is one with her flower open. The loofah gets to be 4 inches or so long before tthe flower even opens for pollination. If they don't get pollinated, they'll rot off. The flower is only open one day, so there has to be a male closeby, some busy insects, or else I'll do it by hand.
Here are 3 loofa, in stages of growth, hanging out of a tree. You can see some flowers in the picture, I've seen as many as 7 females in a row like that, one at every leaf node. I hope nature would stop them from all pollinating though. These things get huge. 24" long and 5" diameter. Heavy while they're live, they dry out to be the lightweight sponges that you see at the store in gift packs and such.
This one is about a foot long now, there's a 5 dollar bill(dollar bills are 6 1/4" long, incidentally, in case you ever need to measure anything and don't have a ruler) for comparison. The vine grew up inside some old shelves I had behind the barn.
So, the first picture is a solitary loofa that I planted and has spread 70 ft, plus 8 ft from the ground to the wire, and another 15 ft, more or less, up the tree on the right side of the picture. So, 93 ft, at last measure. I feel positive that it'll end up at least 100 ft, but thats from one end of one lateral th the other end of another lateral. Still, a hundred ft of growth since sometime in June, when it finally started growing.
OK, here is the male flower. It grows as a cluster, and they open one at a time. There are about 30 flowers per cluster, so there will be one open almost daily for about 30 days. There are a whole lot of male clusters, and they start weeks before the females even form. So, if you ever mess with loofa, you'll be freaking out at first.
Here is a tiny female, at least a week from flowering. Bad picture, I know, but the rest of the pics with tiny ones are even worse.
Lot of males, growing on the side of the overhang. I guess tthey're hoping that when the wind blows, it'll blow their pollen on some open female. Most of the time, the males are on a stem, higher than the rest of the plant, so that when pollen falls, it'll drift around and have a better chance of finding a female.
Here is a female just a few days away from opening her flower. Note a larger, already pollinated and growing fruit behind her.
Here is one with her flower open. The loofah gets to be 4 inches or so long before tthe flower even opens for pollination. If they don't get pollinated, they'll rot off. The flower is only open one day, so there has to be a male closeby, some busy insects, or else I'll do it by hand.
Here are 3 loofa, in stages of growth, hanging out of a tree. You can see some flowers in the picture, I've seen as many as 7 females in a row like that, one at every leaf node. I hope nature would stop them from all pollinating though. These things get huge. 24" long and 5" diameter. Heavy while they're live, they dry out to be the lightweight sponges that you see at the store in gift packs and such.
This one is about a foot long now, there's a 5 dollar bill(dollar bills are 6 1/4" long, incidentally, in case you ever need to measure anything and don't have a ruler) for comparison. The vine grew up inside some old shelves I had behind the barn.
