Loofah plants, like their cousin the cucumber, belong to the cucurbit family.
They produce invasive vines. When growing loofah on the Tower Garden, an outside structure is needed to grow the plants. Vines can be as long as 6 m (20 feet) and produce large fruits. The tendrils of a loofah sponge are very efficient but they need ‘something’ to grab on… Due to the size of the vines, we advise against using a support cage since such an option would not be sufficient to support the growth of the plants.
Like with every other crawling crop, we are against using the bottom planting ports and let the plant grow onto the ground. In fact, one of the biggest advantages of Tower Garden technology is the reduction of pests and insects in comparison to conventional gardening in the soil. Allowing plants to grow onto the soil makes them exposed to all kinds of insects, pests, and pathogens, which are nonexistent when growing crops off the ground.
We are not saying that growing crops off the ground eradicates the problems of pests, insects, fungi, etc., however, such a vertical gardening approach reduces greatly the risks of problems.
Loofah plants, like their cousin the cucumber, belong to the cucurbit family.
We advise planting only 1 seed per rockwool/ coco coir pod. Also, we advise against planting cucumbers at the same time (On the same tower). Cucumbers will always be ready earlier and reach the end of their lifecycle while the luffa is still thriving and growing. Since cucumber plants grow large roots that tend to stretch throughout several planting sections, the cucumber roots can never be removed fully when getting rid of the plant. As a result, after harvesting cucumbers, if the tower is not cleaned properly the leftover roots start rotting (which brings pathogens which can contaminate the other plants growing on the tower, aside from the risk of water pH and electroconductivity problems which writing roots can create). This is why we do not advise to grow luffa and cucumbers on the same tower at the same time.
Loofah plants give generous harvests of fruit used as a vegetal sponge. When the luffa fruit is small (20 cm/8 inches) it is also edible.
In comparison to growing other cucurbits, whether talking about squash, gourds, courgettes/zucchini, or cucumbers, loofah plants do not have fungi nor diseases such as mosaic viruses. Loofah sponges do extremely well when grown using Tower Garden technology.
When the luffa fruit is small (20 cm/8 inches), it is edible.
