{"id":4005,"date":"2016-11-19T10:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/homesteaderdepot.com\/?p=4005"},"modified":"2016-11-19T10:02:00","modified_gmt":"2016-11-19T15:02:00","slug":"growing-loofah-sponges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/2016\/11\/19\/growing-loofah-sponges\/","title":{"rendered":"Growing Loofah Sponges  \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I always thought that loofah was the remains of some aquatic creature living on oceans reefs.\u00a0 But then when I was searching an online seed catalog I saw it listed.\u00a0 I had to click it to check it out, and then grow some for myself.\u00a0 It turns out that loofah is in the same family as cucumber, it\u2019s a gourd, and it can be eaten or left to dry on the vine and used as the sponge you see in stores.\u00a0 Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They do not handle frost well, so don\u2019t plant them too early if you live in a cold zone.<\/li>\n<li>Plant them in an area where they will have room to grow, which can be horizontal on a fence, or vertical on a trellis, and where they can get plenty of sun.<\/li>\n<li>They produce a nice yellow flower that looks nice.<\/li>\n<li>This will turn into a gourd that while young resembles a cucumber. It\u2019s at this stage that it is edible.\u00a0 If you want to eat them, harvest them when they are between 4 to 6inches long and still tender and green.\u00a0\u00a0 You will need to remove the skin, and cook them.\u00a0 They can be steamed, stewed, or best of all, stir-fried.<\/li>\n<li>If you want to get a sponge just keep waiting. The gourd should start to turn yellow or brown.\u00a0 Shake the gourd regularly to check if it\u2019s done.\u00a0 If you can hear loose seeds rattling around inside it is done.\u00a0 You want to keep checking and not leave it too long so that it doesn\u2019t begin to rot.\u00a0 If it does rot it will ruin a portion of the sponge that you can cut off, but it will also leave the rest of it brown instead of white or yellow.\u00a0 After harvesting the dried gourd, remove the top and empty out the seeds so you can grow more next season.\u00a0 Then soak the gourd until the skin softens and peel the skin off.\u00a0 What remains is the loofah sponge.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s not the most productive crop in the garden, but it does taste good when harvest young, and the novelty of growing your own sponge is pretty cool.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a nice non-perishable item that you can take to the local farmer\u2019s market or sell online to make some income off of your garden and help fund your homestead.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you liked this, you might also enjoy\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/8ef9flvm5e266ovn2ep3m6oq5q.hop.clickbank.net\/?tid=NEWADS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ancient Healing Secrets You Can Learn at Home\u2026<\/a><\/h2>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/e8b96k8k-h4z5h3w15ex3osldj.hop.clickbank.net\/?tid=NEWADS\">Yoga and Weight Loss: What You Need to Know<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/e8b96k8k-h4z5h3w15ex3osldj.hop.clickbank.net\/?tid=NEWADS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u2026<\/a><\/h2>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/ada15qviw9433p1qt9umz2sf8f.hop.clickbank.net\/?tid=NEWADS\">How to Become a Master Woodworker<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/ada15qviw9433p1qt9umz2sf8f.hop.clickbank.net\/?tid=NEWADS\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">..<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I always thought that loofah was the remains of some aquatic creature living on oceans reefs.\u00a0 But then when I was searching an online seed catalog I saw it listed.\u00a0 I had to click it to check it out, and then grow some for myself.\u00a0 It turns out that loofah is in the same<\/p>\n<div class=\"blog-grid-button\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/2016\/11\/19\/growing-loofah-sponges\/\">Read More <i class=\"fa fa-arrow-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[249,361],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/survivalhomesteader.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}