Garden Plants

Going into this page I feel I need to make it clear: My expertise is in houseplants. Although I have had success with outdoor gardening, and am sharing that success with you all through seeds and tips, there are people more well equipped than me to speak on this kind of growing. The folks at Epic Gardening, for example, are some of those people. I follow their podcast, it's legit. A good chunk of the advice I give will probably line up with what they have to say.

To date, my business-card-seeds come in two types: Pretty Stinky African Marigolds, and SEIZE THE MEANS OF SPONGE PRODUCTION Loofah Gourd. They’re not special cultivars or anything they’re just the genetics I was able to harvest from my own personal garden. I grow in Zone 7, where the ground is thawed enough to begin yard work in April, and the risk of freezing has passed by Mother’s Day in May. Growing season is usually done by the first week in November. A lot of my gardening style is "set it and forget it"; none of the seeds I successfully collect and spotlight are going to be high maintainence.

African Marigolds - Tagetes erecta – Full Sun – Drought Tolerant

I plant them around the edges to “guard” my food crops. They have a strong but not unpleasant scent that repels common garden pests like deer, rabbits, and some species of beetle. They bloom continuously from spring to winter. Their flowers attract beneficial pollinators like the Common White Butterfly and Sunflower Moths.
Marigolds are sown directly into the garden bed in April. When they first sprout their first leaves, or cotyledon, are unremarkable and you want to wait for true leaves to appear before culling excess seedlings. Leave about three inches between seedlings you choose to keep. As the plant grows it will benefit from occasional pruning to keep it compact and bush like.
I personally don’t feed the flowers. They get their nutrition from quality soil, and overflow from when I feed the food crops next to them.

Loofah / Luffa Gourd – Luffa aegyptiaca – Full Sun – Fruiting
Did you know bath sponges come from plants? I sure didn’t for a long time. I thought they were sea critters. Luffa gourd grows in the same manner as a pumpkin or cucumber- neither of which you should plant near it to avoid unwanted cross pollination. Your plant will grow rapidly in the spring and summer, producing vines that require a very sturdy trellis or fence to climb. They begin making fruit in the hottest days of July all the way until the first frost. Frost will kill the vine, but the gourd itself can be harvested right up until it literally rots away, they have incredibly strong fibers.
Start your luffa plants a month before you want to plant them. Luffa have a very long grow season; Zone 7 is just a tad too short to sow these outside. Soak the seeds in hot water for an hour before planting them in their starting location. I prefer the paper towel starting method- which isn’t planting at all. Place the seeds on a wet paper towel in a single layer and stick them against the wall of jar. Keep the seeds damp, and within a week you will see roots. At three weeks most will have cotyledon. After a month most should have at least one pair of true leaves, and are ready for the outdoors. I recommend going directly from jar to final location, as disturbing the luffa’s roots will pause it’s growth, no matter how gentle the disturbance was. One and Done sort of transplanting.
Plant more luffa outside than what you need, cull the smaller vines after a month passes. Keep the seedlings under a cloche until night temperatures stop falling below 40 degrees. As they grow, be sure you are training them towards your trellis/fence. If you allow them to grow along the ground they will root in place quickly. This is great for fostering a stronger root system at the plant’s base, less great if they rooted over a neighboring crop. You don’t need more than one luffa vine. The plant does need both male and female flowers to produce fruit, but one vine can and will produce more than enough.
Water and feed frequently. The leaves will visibly wilt if allowed to dry too much. All nutrients taken in will go towards producing a stronger sponge. In August, your vine will be gigantic, and a large number of luffa gourds will have started growing. If the gourd count is to your liking, start trimming female flowers as you spot them to encourage the plant to focus energy on sizing up existing fruits. Once the frost hits, the plant will die and any underdeveloped gourds will stop developing, fruit pollinated after September will be poor sponge quality.
Luffa gourds are easiest to harvest when the fruit is yellow; the flesh peels off readily and the gunk inside them is easiest to wash off at this stage. They can be harvested at any color, however, once the fruit itself has stopped growing larger. Dark green fruit is difficult to remove all the gourd innards from, and may not have had time to grow a sturdy inner sponge. Brown dried fruits may have dark stained sponge fibers, and smell a bit like ammonia, but this is the best stage to harvest seeds from. A fruit with good quality fiber will be larger, but feel lighter than one that is still mostly liquid. Viable luffa seed will be solid black and not cave inwards when dried.
Once harvested and processed clean, your luffa is now a loofah. Processing loofah sponge is a whole guide on it’s own, which I will write, however at the time of typing this it is 2am and I do not have access to photographs.