Meet Luffa
equal parts tenacity and spirit
This is Luffa. A summer plant, by all definitions, bound and determined to be the first fiber plant even if it means blooming in winter.
And then there's me, an amateur gardener, at best, with a thumb far more accustomed to ink stains doing whatever I can to nurture these luffa dreams into reality.
How did we get here, one might ask?
Well, what had happened was :
The Storybook Farm dream was born and set to a low simmer in our thoughts and dreams.
A wishing well was established in the (current) garden.
I had a couple of , what I thought were very dead and very sterile, luffa sponges from previous chapters that I offered to the well
lo and behold, a couple of those seeds were merely in a deep slumber and started growing on the downlow within the well until an abundance of vines was spilling over.
I didn’t actually put the pieces together until we ran into a wrinkle with our HOA wanting a different aesthetic than our green space was giving. ( it’s inevitable that no matter what efforts are made, our green spaces always tend to carry a bit of the wild in their visage.)
It became suddenly clear that :
A — Luffa is indeed a fiber plant, thus going on the approved list. ( In an effort to temper my enthusiastic tendencies of over-doing and to train prioritizing focus, I’ve limited myself to only experimenting with fiber plants during these beginning stages of the “earning the herd” journey. — and ideally, one at a time. Only adding to once a solid understanding has been established. )
B — This particular luffa was a direct response to an offering made and no way was I going to reject that.
C — I had to figure out a way to ensure it’s survival amidst the chaos of HOA appeasement.
[ Enter the pot]
Transition to the pot did not go well. The luffa died. I grieved.
With autumn came the plot twist of new sprouts in said pot!
And we’ve been making it work ever since.
At the time of typing, there have so far been 2 indoor slumber parties to wait out flash temperature drops and an equal amount of blooms (!) ….though I think we’re down to one on the bloom count.
I’m doing my best to stay open to the experience and the lessons, though I hope, with crossed fingers and toes, that she makes it to seed. What a gift it would be to have a fiber crop with such tenacity and spirit in its lineage!
Also, this might be the first time I’m truly appreciative of the mild autumns/winters of Texas.
