Becomming a Sponge, in Several Steps

First steps, clean the skin off the gourd, shake out the seeds.  This is the OLD loofah, it measured about 10 inches long and had well more than one hundred seeds!  I suspect the other longer gourds will have a lot more seeds which means I'll probably never have to buy loofahs seeds again!  The skin wasn't too hard to remove because it was so brittle.

Here is the gourd after a quick plain water rinse.

 

Here is the gourd after a quick rinse in a light bleach water.  I might should have left it in the bleach water a little longer than the 3-4 minutes I did. This is a practice gourd, so once it's dry I'll know if it needs more time soaking.  I'm hoping the bleach will lighten that dark spot.  Now it's laying on top of my compost bin so it can dry in the sun.  I need to turn it over every 30 minutes or so.

Once this one is done, I have six more to do...

Can't stop a Loofah!!!

THIS is my loofah vines!  They've taken over the garden bed and have spilled out onto the grass in front of the bed.  I had to use a 2x4 to prop up the trellises, as I mentioned before they weren't really strong enough for loofahs.  The cucumbers would have done just fine here had the loofahs not crowded them out.

 

I picked/cut these seven gourds to begin practicing this week how to peel them and make them into sponges.  The one on the far left was the first to grow on the vine - I probably should have cut it much sooner.  I'm going to have more than three dozen gourds to play with - and I just saw 6-7 baby ones on the vines in the grass!  I've read that the vines will keep on producing until they freeze! Oh boy!

I'm working extra this week so I may not get the next post on until next week.  Until then, never surrender, never give up, and may all your dreams come true.