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I tried this year too, but they didn't do well in a pot. I was reluctant to put them in the ground, though, after pumpkins took over my yard last year....
I saw these once upon a time in a seed catalogue, and I thought wistfully, One day I will have a little house with a little garden, and I will plant a hearty crop of loofahs, and I am going to be exfoliating like mad. Like mad, I tell you!
My mum planted these one year and they spread all over the place...didn't have so many fruits though. We get them fresh from the local Asian market, they're very good cut up and sort of braised and served over rice.
I tried to grow my own loofah/luffa vine from seeds from a gourd that I stole from the botanical gardens in Gainesville, Florida. It was a pretty vine, but didn't do so hot in the Portland chill. I still have the dried gourd, though, and it looks pretty cool.
I did some of my undergraduate work with Luffa cylindrica plants. I must have grown hundreds of them in little pots in a growth chamber, but I had to throw them away before they fruited. Well, I doubt they would have fruited in those tiny little pots anyway, but it still made me sad to toss them before they had a chance to breed.
I grew these when I lived in Georgia, and they did great. They do spread widely, but we had the space. When I tell people I grew loofahs, at least half of them assume I'm pulling their legs--they just won't believe it's not an actual sponge.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
