Comment

Comment by TCLynx on April 22, 2012 at 7:04pm

for the towers?  Or the Lufa?

I have been using the towers for over a year and a half I guess.  You need to make sure it is easy to check and clean the feed to the towers.  And watch you knuckles when you pull the media in/out of the towers.

Comment by Diana Willis on April 22, 2012 at 6:43pm

Guess I won't be growing my luffa in the towers!
How long have you been using them and what advice would you give to a new user?

Comment by TCLynx on April 22, 2012 at 7:31am

Oh NO, the Lufa was grown in a giant tub of Gravel.  The lufa vines will grow on up and over everything so a "space saving" method of growing them is rather pointless anyway since the plant it's self is so huge.

DO NOT plant lufa in a tower.  The root system is huge and the base of the vine will grow to the size of my arm in a single hot climate summer if it gets enough water and nutrients.  It would probably damage a zipgrow tower and might be impossible to remove from the housing.  any other tower system would also certainly get clogged if not come crashing down with the weight and clogging of the roots from such a leviathan of a plant.

A single lufa vine is perfectly able to completely fill a 100 gallon stock tank gravel bed full of roots in it's single growing season.  It can also grow well over 30 feet in length.  Be careful where you plant it, it will climb anything and needs a sturdy trellis or support.  It can consume an oak tree and we still have the dried fruit falling from the crepe myrtles from last summer.  It is an annual.

Comment by Diana Willis on April 22, 2012 at 6:17am

I love the tower system. So you have grown luffa successfully with the system?
That is definatly a space saving method