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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-348
Ridge Gourd
Luffa acutangula
Ridge gourd is a vigorous vine grown for its young fruit, picked at 6-8 inches and tender enough to cook as a vegetable while still that size - left longer, it turns fibrous. It needs a long warm season, sown after all danger of frost, and roughly 100 days to that first pick, or about 130 if the fruit is left on the vine to dry into a scrubbing sponge instead - a genuine second use from the same plant. It is toxic to grazing livestock, so it should be trellised and fenced away from any paddock a cow, goat or sheep can reach, and its vine or fruit should never be tossed over a fence as feed.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moderate
Vertical layer
Vine- Soil pH
- 5.5–7.5
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 6–10 ft
- Mature spread
- 4–20 in
- Plant spacing
- 3–4 in
- Root type
- Tap
- Spread pattern
- Seed
Keep exploring
Similar plants
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Banana Passionfruit
Passiflora tarminiana
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Bottle Gourd
Lagenaria siceraria
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
- Locked ecological function
Behind the record
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