🌀 Summer update

luffa club #2

august 2024

Are you enjoying summer? There are still plenty of warm evenings ahead — a favorite. Today the luffas vines reach high to soak the morning sun… it’s wild to think the plants were barely a foot tall just a couple months ago.

The sudden burst of growth covered the trellis in green and dotted it in yellow flowers. They open in the morning and close at sundown; bumblebees and ants come to pollinate; you try to spot the rare female flowers that’ll bear fruit. Count so far: one. Back to patience.

This morning we are also reminiscing of spring: the last oranges, the wildflower blooms, and meticulously preparing the garden. Let’s recap.

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1) How to prepare the Earth for Luffa?

This goes without saying: there’s no right way to do gardening… but with so many variables at play, one will find themselves trying to control what can be. Heck, this is horticulture, baby.

This used to be a patch of dirt

A 6.5 ft tall wooden structure with metal wire supports the vines. The drip irrigation goes off twice a day, 25 minutes each. The soil was amended and mulched, humidity is monitored, and the luffas sit in a little dirt mound. The romantic flair of the yellow flowers and green, pointy leaves hides the classic beauty of an engineered system.

Sometimes the garden feels like a tight feedback loop between air, earth, sun, etc., with the plants somewhere in the center. The plant signals, and you, the amateur architect of this loop, read, and turn knobs accordingly.

In a sense, you’re always growing the whole garden, maybe more so than just the one veggie.

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2) What do you do while the Luffa grows?

You can pick oranges.

Here are 5 things to do with oranges (other than juice):

• Home cleaner
• Marmalade
• Arancello
• Dehydrated slices
• Sour gummies (s/o Robin!)

You can make a collage of the spring flowers with your iPhone

You can design a canvas kimono-work-jacket to wear in the garden

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See you soon in the garden.

With love,

Luffa Club