Grow your own bath sponge! Luffa gourds are the familiar bath sponge. Growing your own will keep you entertained all growing season and are great fun for a long time after they are harvested. Peel ...

I was introduced to the Luffa gourd while living in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, where it grows on every telephone pole in the province. Guanacaste has a dry tropical forest ecosystem with at least six ...

Shaped like an oversized apple, these hard-shelled gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) grow six to eight inches tall and four to six inches across. In India, young fruit is added to curries. The skin is ...

Loofahs are great for exfoliating the skin, and though one of them is my regular shower companion, I had no idea what they are. I assumed the coarse tubes were either natural sponges from the sea, or ...

Editor’s note: Luffa plants will be sold at the VCMGA Spring Plant Sale on April 2. Last September at Rockport’s Hummingbird Celebration, my friend Janet pointed to a huge vine with long ...

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but sponges grow on vines. Loofahs (also known as luffas) are a type of vining plant that produces fruit that closely resembles a large zucchini. The loofah fruit can be ...

I have been getting a lot of questions lately on how to handle a luffa or loofah gourd to get a usable sponge. Luffa or sponge gourds should be harvested when the outer shell is dry. When you can hear ...

Q: I grew a loofah plant in my garden this year. Before the first frost I picked them, all are a good size and they are still green. Should I let them turn brown before I attempt to peel them? — Jack ...

Paraguayan innovator Elsa Zaldívar has won the 2008 Rolex Award for Enterprise thanks to her project which consists of not only training women heads of households about processing the luffa cylindrica ...

This is the season when autumnal displays surround us. Decorative gourds seem to appear overnight, as if beamed down from an alien spacecraft: striped, speckled, warted, and winged. Bright bursts of ...

Dear Jean: You are growing cucuzzi gourd, Lagenaria siceraria. They're pretty big, but very edible. This one is well over a 18 inches long, and will keep growing till it's three feet or more. At that ...