Making a Birdhouse Gourd Into Something Other than a Birdhouse

At a seed swap years ago, someone gave me some birdhouse gourd seeds.  It was just a few of them.  I thought it would be fun, so I planted them.  They vined like kudzu, taking over the back portion of the garden, the cucumber trellis and then threatened to cover the cows, chickens, and goats.  What a prolific plant!

They produced many birdhouse gourds.  I dried them, sanded them, drilled a hold in the side and cut dowels to be used as a perch for the feathered occupants.  Then a hole was cut in the neck and a leather strap was fastened to it.  We hung the birdhouses in the pecan tree.  They looked so welcoming and inviting.  And they were.  But not to birds.  Wasps found that they provided protection from the weather and moved in.  Before we knew it, all of the wasps hung NO VACANCY signs.  They were full.

Birdhouse gourds produce a bajillion seeds and they come up volunteer every year.  Last year we had yet another bumper crop of wasp houses... errr birdhouses.  I vowed never again.  Tricia decided she'd make some colorful ornaments to hang from the tree.  We just wouldn't drill a hole in them this time!  Here's some of the gourds, sanded and ready for painting.

The industrious lady of the manor fashioned a mechanism with bungee cords and temporary electric fence posts to hang the gourds for painting.

The first three were painted a glossy cobalt blue.

I looked over and she had an assembly line of gourd processing underway.

Some were green...

Some were happy yellow...

The wasps (and birds) will have to seek out a realtor for their home searches.  These will be unoccupied decorations only!

Growing and Processing Luffa Gourds!

Every year we grow luffa gourds.  This is perhaps the easiest thing to grow.  Even if you don't have a green thumb, luffas will grow and flourish.  They take zero maintenance.  All you have to do is provide them some sort of trellis to grow on.  They will inevitably vine to try to take over your garden, but you can clip off the vines and compost them or feed them to your animals.  The leaves are large and sometimes hide the gourds.  You can see a big gourd in the center left below.

Luffas are gourds that we make bath sponges out of.  I harvest them as they start to turn brown or a little yellow on the vine.  They continue to produce and produce until the first freeze knocks them out of commission.  Here is the last batch of them that I pulled a little early, but I had to as the freeze killed the plant.  I'm leaving them on the patio to dry a little bit.

When you feel the outer covering getting a little dry, you simply peel it off.  It peels right off rather easily.

Once the outer covering is removed (shown below), the inner sponge is revealed.  I'll leave it in the sun for a few days to fully dry, flipping it over in the process to ensure it dries evenly and completely.

But we're not quite finished yet.  Luffas produce a plethora of seeds.  These things are serious about reproducing themselves.  When fully dry, you can shake the gourd and hear many seeds inside.  I place a bucket underneath the gourd and shake and shake and shake some more.

You end up with a LOT of seeds.  I use a few to replant for the next crop year, but I always have way too many for my own personal use.  If anyone needs any, let me know and I'll give you all you can handle.

Now, if you notice in the two photos above, the gourds are a drab brown color.  We use these luffas as bath sponges and find that they are more aesthetically pleasing when they are a lighter color and all cleaned up.  I'll generally get a 5 gallon bucket and fill it with water and add some bleach to it.  Then I'll place a batch of luffas soaking in the bucket overnight.

Most of the luffas are about 2 feet long, so after the first night's soak in the bleach-water solution, I'll flip them over to bleach the other side.  You can see the difference that the bleaching makes below.  That makes a big difference, and the top will be bleached just the same once soaked for another night.

"Let's do this" is right!

Here is one batch of the finished product:

Since they are quite large as you can tell by me holding one below, they are too big to use for a bath sponge.  I like to cut them in half.

Tricia and I each have one in the shower.  We wet the sponge, rub soap on it and use it in place of a washrag.  The luffa is a great exfoliant and is reslient and long-lasting.  You can freshen it up after using it a bit by soaking it in a bleach solution.  I've heard of people cutting the luffa into disks and when making soap, they pour the soap in the middle and let it dry.  I haven't tried that yet.  Luffas are great to give to family and friends as gifts.  Scrub-a-dub-dub.

Growing, Harvesting, and Processing Luffa Gourds

We tried growing something this year that we've never grown before on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm: We grew Luffa Gourds!  Granted, I like growing things you can eat.  But believe it or not, I learned that you can eat luffa gourds when they are very small.  They say that they are like cucumbers.  I haven't eaten any yet, so I can't recommend them to you.  But what I can tell you is this: They are so easy to grow. They require no special care.  Well, except...

They grow very quickly and vine all over the place and each afternoon, I have to go pull their vines off of the okra plants or they would completely take them over.  But that's the only downside I can think of.  In the early mornings the yellow blooms of their flowers are beautiful and make a garden that is largely dry and dormant (other than peppers, okra, basil, peanuts, and sweet potatoes) look somewhat presentable during the last days of summer.  Luffa are prolific producers.  I have luffa gourds growing all over the place.  Here are three nice sized ones that have grown from vines that took over a stack of tomato cages.

Luffa Gourds

Since it was my first time growing them, I had to do a little research in order to figure out what to do with them.  I learned that you should wait until the outside of the gourd feels like the texture of a football before harvesting it.  I actually harvested one a little early due to my impatience and learned that it is okay, you just need to let it dry a little longer, so there's room for error without ruining the luffa.  I like that.  It is forgiving!  I brought the ripened luffa inside.  It felt light and if you shake it you could hear seeds jiggling around inside.

A luffa gourd that feels like a football

Benjamin took over at this point and he used his fingernail to puncture the outer skin of the gourd. Then he simply started tearing it away.  It came off easily, exposing the actual sponge.  It is still amazing to me that you can grow something in your garden that looks like it came from the ocean.

Peeling off the outer skin

Now once you peel the skin off a dry one, you can cut it in half and pour out the seeds.  This one required a little drying so I set it outside in the sun on top of the air conditioner to allow it to dry.  The next day I flipped it over to allow both sides to dry equally.

Drying the luffa

Then it was completely dry and we brought it inside and Benjamin cut it in half with a steak knife.

Cutting the luffa in half

Genesis 1:1 says, "Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so."

The luffa gourd growing in the garden was listening very closely to this command, because I've never seen a plant that grew more seeds!  We kept shaking and shaking and shaking and the seeds just kept on falling out.  It was really incredible, I tell you.

Shaking the seeds out

I'll save these seeds, but I think it may be overkill.  If anyone needs any, I'd be glad to share!

An abundance of luffa seeds

Once all the seeds were removed, I poured a little water in a bucket and added a capful of bleach.  I just wanted to clean up the luffa of any seed particles like you see in the photo above.

Soaking the luffa sponges in a mild water/bleach solution

Then I removed them from the bucket after a few hours and allowed them to dry.

Ready to go take a bath!

And that is it!  I've given these to our kids in college and once ours are dry we'll put them in the shower.  These can be used in place of a washrag to scrub or exfoliate your skin.  Simply wet it, apply soap and scrub.  You can use the luffa on the heels and soles of your feet, too.  You should rinse the soap out of them when you are finished and allow them to dry.  It is probably not a good idea to use a luffa every day since your skin needs a certain amount of oils, but once in a while removes dead skin and scrubs the grime off of you that you get sometimes when working in the garden or with the animals.  When Saturday night rolls around and it is time for my weekly bath, I'm ready for a good scrubbing with a luffa.  Just joking, of course.