Climbing plants for run.

[FLFirefly]

Last summer was my first year with chickens. For the Florida summer, I tried growing Loofah on my coop and it worked out great. It started with mainly vines (that provided shade), then vines with pretty yellow flowers, then the loofah fruit started to grow. I had 3 plants, and it was vigorous. The bonus was that the chickens can eat everything and they love it. If it was getting too viney, I cut off some pieces and threw it to them for a snack. When the fruit started, I'd give them one for a snack. People can eat the small fruits too. It tastes like a cucumber/summer squash. The ones that I couldn't reach on the top became huge ones that dried into the sponge. But honestly, I don't use loofah sponges. I definitely will do it again next year.
Can you do loofah in northern NH? They take at least 11-12 weeks to fruit. I think if you started it indoors, and then put a good size started plant out June 1st or so, it would have June, July and August hot weather. It does need daily water.
Hope you find something good.

 

[TOMTE]

Last summer was my first year with chickens. For the Florida summer, I tried growing Loofah on my coop and it worked out great. It started with mainly vines (that provided shade), then vines with pretty yellow flowers, then the loofah fruit started to grow. I had 3 plants, and it was vigorous. The bonus was that the chickens can eat everything and they love it. If it was getting too viney, I cut off some pieces and threw it to them for a snack. When the fruit started, I'd give them one for a snack. People can eat the small fruits too. It tastes like a cucumber/summer squash. The ones that I couldn't reach on the top became huge ones that dried into the sponge. But honestly, I don't use loofah sponges. I definitely will do it again next year.
Can you do loofah in northern NH? They take at least 11-12 weeks to fruit. I think if you started it indoors, and then put a good size started plant out June 1st or so, it would have June, July and August hot weather. It does need daily water.
Hope you find something good.View attachment 4018405

Looks like loofah is hard to grow above zone 6 because it takes ~200 days to mature, and it doesn't stay warm and sunny enough further north... It could be started indoors but probably wouldn't be worth the effort at that point.

 

[FLFirefly]

Looks like loofah is hard to grow above zone 6 because it takes ~200 days to mature, and it doesn't stay warm and sunny enough further north... It could be started indoors but probably wouldn't be worth the effort at that point.

Mine didn't take that long to grow into a good vine cover. More like 100 days. But if you want to grow the fruits to a large size and harvest the sponges, they need dry on the vine and that takes an additional chunk of time. But for just the vine, the pretty yellow flowers and some small fruits, it might work. But yeah, an October frost would kill it back.

 

[linguini]

Mine didn't take that long to grow into a good vine cover. More like 100 days. But if you want to grow the fruits to a large size and harvest the sponges, they need dry on the vine and that takes an additional chunk of time. But for just the vine, the pretty yellow flowers and some small fruits, it might work. But yeah, an October frost would kill it back.

We are in zone 7. I've planted loofah squash for the last 4 summers, not easy to grow, leaves don't take off till fall. The shark-fin squash (got seedlings from local Asian stores in spring), on the other hand, grew out of control. They don't flower till after mid September. The photo was taken in early October. The melons are huge, 6-8 lbs each. Entire garden was covered by the squash leaves.

 

[FLFirefly]

We are in zone 7. I've planted loofah squash for the last 4 summers, not easy to grow, leaves don't take off till fall. The shark-fin squash (got seedlings from local Asian stores in spring), on the other hand, grew out of control. They don't flower till after mid September. The photo was taken in early October. The melons are huge, 6-8 lbs each. Entire garden was covered by the squash leaves.

View attachment 4020577

Whoah, that looks fun to try. Did the chickens like them too? How do they taste?

 

[linguini]

Whoah, that looks fun to try. Did the chickens like them too? How do they taste?

They absolutely loved the ones that grew below the net.
Here is one that we rescued before the squash was totally consumed by chickens. All melons from one plant.
In comparison, we harvested only one loofah squash for the entire season.