Update on growing luffa in your garden

Finally I'm getting some good results. Luffa that was planted some time in June is coming to some nice fruit.

But luffa seeded a whole month and a half after the initial one is doing much better: larger fruit and healthier vines all around:

This "later" luffa also has more developing fruit that does not fall off:

This leads me to believe that luffa does not really like our summer heat and prefers cooler weather. So, for the fall harvest we should seed it sometime in August, like any other squash family. In spring it probably should be seeded in February. I have a total of five plants going, and by counting the developing fruit I would have at least twenty grown gourds to make my sponges. Not a bad proposition.