Dried Luffa and Gourd Progress

My first luffa was fully dried and ready for peeling, so off came the outer skin to reveal the luffa sponge inside!

Here are the seeds that were inside this one – quite a bit!

 Luffa seed

I worked on my first gourds and I designed a little swan … how perfect 🙂  I still need to make some feet or something so he can stand on his own.  The other larger gourd (bottle gourd) I decided to make into a vase so I cut the top off and transferred a pansy design onto it, then I woodburned it.  I will add more design and color and when it’s complete I will add it to my craft blog.   It looks pretty cool so far …

 

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The Luffa in the Garden is Drying

What a nice, long wonderful weekend down south with family and friends – it’s so hard to leave and come back up north to the old routine life.  The Luffa is starting to dry on the vine …

  2 luffa on vines Luffa half dried

The Coneflower (Enchinacea) has gone to seed also –

 At first I thought this was some type of moth, but after I googled it, I found it to be a Painted Lady Butterfly – quite common.  We visited the State Park nearby and captured a deer roaming the trails …

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Luffa progress and Luna Moth!

I was somewhat concerned with the Luffa plants down south since I had been keeping an eye on the weather and it appeared very dry and sure enough it was!  The luffas were droopy and the first thing I did was give them all a good drink of water .. then I shot some pictures of their progress and can only hope they get enough water to grow into big luffa sponges!

 Luffa developing

Our last night I spotted a Luna Moth and just read up on it and it only moves around at night so is a rare sighting … there also seems to be less and less of them lately.  I had no idea what it was – just that it was huge and beautiful!

 

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Luffa progress and my apologies to Sarge

Yesterday I posted about the wild dogs I spotted over the weekend and mentioned all my own dogs Except I forgot to include Sarge, our miniature dachshund who is 12 years old and in great health.  He prefers to stay home with the teenagers when we take our trips down south.  I image he does what they do – sleeps late (or all day) and stays up all night!  I am glad he prefers that since his roaming in the country fields would not be a good idea!  So I apologize for not including him in the family dog pack .. he does have status after all …

The Luffa plants are taking off, no flowers on them yet, but I bet next trip they will have plenty.  I hope my homemade trellis for them holds up.  I had inside window frames which we never used (I felt they distracted from the view looking out the window), so I stained them and used them to help the Luffa.  I did anchor them in the ground with some thick wire poles. 

  Luffa vines

I spotted this white fungus growing – may be some type of mushroom?  I wouldn’t dare eat it, but it sure looks cool …

  

Of course I didn’t stop there with the camera and I have to say this orange bird was remarkable … much bigger than the robin we have up north – I would say about 3 times as big! 

I notice many of the bugs down south are bigger also … this big spider is dining on a horsefly and those horseflies were ALL over the place.  You do get used to the constant hum and Augie the dog is very good at hunting them down and making history of them!  It’s rather amazing actually.

 I bet this green grasshopper can do some damage to the crop and lastly, a fancy white moth …

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Growing the Luffa sponge

I grew Luffa last year for the first time and I am growing alot more this year – it was interesting, educational and I like growing something that has a “purpose”.  The luffa sponge grows in the garden and not the ocean like many people believe – I always thought that myself until I came across it in one of the garden seed catalogs.  It does require a somewhat longer growing season and quite a bit of space since the vines really take off.  I did read somewhere to cut the vine after a certain point (I think it was 10 ft) and let the energy go to the growing luffas.  I will experiment with that this year.  The seeds are hard so they should be soaked in water for at least 24 hrs. before planting and then nicked (or slightly cut) with scissors to encourage the growth to begin.

 

The actual luffa looks like a cucumber or zucchini and last year I let them just grow on the ground, this year we will be making a trellis for them to hang – they can grow 2-3 ft. in length.  When they are smaller, they can be eaten but I haven’t dined on any myself.  The practice is to let the luffa dry on the vine (turn brown) and then take it from the vine.  I ran out of time last year and brought them in when still green and let them dry inside.  It took a couple of months for this and then I peeled the skin off and found a luffa sponge inside!  I did soak the sponge and remove the seeds which I am growing this year!

 

The sponge can be used as it is or you can craft with it – I will be creating some more luffa crafts this year.  Luffa soap was my fun undertaking last year – just in time for Christmas gifts!

 

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Bat house & Blue corn !!

Today was Great!  We went to the Farm store and Stan purchased a brand new riding lawnmower and cart for our place down south … me, I browsed around and the first place that draws me in is the seed racks.  Yes, I have tons already and tons growing, but the lure of the seed racks can’t be denied and WOW did they have some cool seeds!  I picked up a Cactus Mix (my son finds them interesting) a challenge to grow?  The challenge last year for me was Luffa and that worked out – luffa sponge grows in the garden and I do have many started for this growing season, so you will hear all about that!  Now this BLUE corn I also purchased … it’s ornamental and miniature so we won’t be dining on it – I suppose I will use it for decoration or who knows … but how cool!  They had all sorts of gourd seeds but I have several types going already and plan to learn how to craft with those.  I can’t go overboard (although I think I already have) with seeds …

The Bat house … never thought I would be buying one of these!  Bat poop or more properly Bat guano is an excellent fertilizer and I know we have bats swooping around down south ,,, SO I figure they need a house.  The construction is unique and for $12 it was wiser to purchase it then try and make our own at this point.  It states that 20-25 bats will make this their residence and they eat TONS of insects.  I figure between the bat poop and the insect eating feature this was a bargain!  The inside of the house – can’t image hanging in there …

Oh…earlier today I went to the bookstore and purchased WordPress for Dummies – so I should start a Category for this as I learn for reference AND to help everyone else out…this internet blogging is nothing like digging in the dirt!!    Not sure who is more excited about their purchases today – me or him???

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