A dream realized... growing Loofahs!

A few years (YEARS, omg) ago, I posted about my newest fun fact, which is that loofahs are not in fact under water sponges or something equally mysterious, but are actually a fruit that grows on a vine! Once I found that out, I just had to grow them. Fortunately, given our recent container gardening success (and trust me you've only seen the tip of the iceberg on that), my co-gardener across the city surprised me with some loofah seeds! (which, as with everything these days, you can get on amazon).

I have no experience with seeds. All my other plants arrived as little baby plants from Home Depot. So, I was a little apprehensive. Ever the scientist, I decided to do an experiment. I took 6 seeds, and soaked them all overnight in a cup of water. 

I then took 3 seeds, and planted them in little pots of wet dirt. The other 3 I put between 2 layers of wet paper towel, inside of a little plastic container from Trader Joes (like veggies and salads come in), which I left outside like a greenhouse.

After a few days, the paper towel group clearly had little roots! Once the roots were pretty big, I planted each one in a little pot (I wanted the pots to be little so that when I moved them to the big pot, I could just take all the dirt along with them).

Actually though, in the end, they all sprouted. So, my fabulous experiment can't reveal any greater truths about seed germination. But do I care? Not at all. Because what do I have? A WHOLE LOTTA LOOFAH!

 It may be a bit late in the season (although California stays warm fairly late). And, I have no idea if it'll work, but oooooh boy, am I ever pumped up about this.