A Day In The Life: From gourd to scrub in Tang

by Navjyoti Dalal

A small farm in Tang has some unusual inhabitants, alongside the regular sheep and cattle.

Luffa gourds hang from their vines inside a polytunnel. These luffa gourds are possibly the first and only to be grown in Ireland. A cousin of the cucumber, this vegetable is native to Asian countries like India, Pakistan, China, Nepal, Myanmar, Vietnam, Indonesia and more. Some parts of South America also grow it.

What brought it to Ireland is the curiosity of Joshua Flanagan, a young farmer and founder of Banva Naturals, who decided to go niche on his farming journey.

A Farm Boy

Born into a family of farmers, an agrarian life comes naturally to Joshua. “I grew up on a farm with sheep and cattle in Tang, a small parish in Westmeath. It was a very rural landscape, there were no shops around, and most of our neighbours were also farmers,” shared Joshua.

He added that he did not harbour 'serious professional ambition', and went along the flow, discovering life. This included a seven-year period travelling around Scotland, Australia and New Zealand. From meeting new people, understanding different cultures, to picking apples in Tasmania, Joshua's travels rejuvenated his take on life.

When he returned to Ireland in 2019 he got his Green Cert (a recognised agricultural qualification) from Ballyhaise Agriculture College in Cavan, and has been farming since.

While he continued to look after the ancestral sheep and cattle, like his parents, Joshua wanted to also work with the soil and grow from it.

“The pandemic put a stop to travelling, so I turned to farming. I set up a polytunnel to grow garlic. Most of the garlic we import comes from China, which is not a great idea, given that it can very well be grown here. It's a veratile ingredient used in a variety of cuisines,” shared Joshua, who continues to grow garlic. He did also try his hand at growing tomatoes, but 'no one was interested'.

“I had some luffa gourd seeds on me which I had ordered online. I thought I should give growing these a try,” said Joshua, who at the time was also working as a barman at Sean's Bar, Athlone.

During one of the parties he gifted some loofah scrubs, made from the mature luffa gourd, to some girls. “They liked it and one of them wanted to buy more of it. Seeing the demand, I decided to grow it as a crop,” explained Joshua.

A Different Harvest

While most luffa gourd growers grow it for its use as a vegetable, some gourds which are not harvested when young, get heavily fibrous, and are allowed to dry on the plant.

A popular product of the natural wellness world, the loofah scrubbing sponge, comes from this dried luffa vegetable (technically a fruit). Joshua sells the Irish-grown loofahs at markets (Coosan market, Ballymahon christmas market) and local health shops like Lowe and Co and Au Naturel. His brand, Banva Naturals, is called 'Banba' in Irish.

“Banba is of one of the three ancient goddesses, along with Fódla and Éiru, whose names are synonymous with the island of Ireland,” he explained.

Although he is new to the world of entrepreneurship, Joshua is learning along the way. He is updating his marketing and packaging skills from feedback he receives from customers at the markets. In fact, when he learned from a customer that many soaps come with a loofah he learned soap-making to accommodate the demand.

“I cut the smaller loofahs and incorporate them with the soap. I generally make four types of soaps – Seaweed, Charcoal, Turmeric and a plain unscented one. I converted a room for manufacturing the soaps in,” shared Joshua, who experimented with various recipes learned through YouTube video tutorials, before coming up with his own version.

Each day a brand new day

Joshua, who has worked as a kitchen assistant, bartender, and even as a construction worker to supplement his income, shares that farming life is very different from other jobs. “Unlike many jobs, a farmer's working patterns are different each day and change with the season. Typically, a day begins around 7am, when he takes a round of his farm, checks on his animals and plants and tending to them accordingly.

“For instance, today I went to see the cattle, moved the cows from one pasture to another, picked up mushrooms which were growing. Then I checked on the sheep, gave them some lambnuts to nourish them, then went to check on the garlic and loofahs, if they are watered enough,” he said.

He adds that farming is cyclical in nature and changes from season to season. “Next month, we will have the rams next to the sheep, for mating. We have 30 cows, but no bull, but we use artificial insemination after checking which cow is in heat,” shared Joshua, who will soon start a new job with An Post alongside his farming practice. “You need a part-time job for supplementary income,” he said.

He is looking to diversify his crop for the same goal. At the moment Joshua is growing ornamental bamboo for people to grow in their gardens, apart from recently seeding garlic for people to grow in their own homes.

Farm Easy

Farming, he says, is laborious, but rewarding. His yields vary year to year as "some luffas don't fully mature in time before we get first frost".

“But I harvest about 120 to 150 usable luffa from 60 plants some of them two feet in length, but most about one foot,” he told us.

Luffa, which is native to sunnier climates, takes longer to grow in Ireland, but Joshua, in his own way wants to grow it locally in his effort to lessen the carbon footprint. “In hotter climates they take 150 days to mature, but here it takes 200 days,” he added.

He explained that the advantages and disadvantages of being a farmer are intertwined and can often just be a matter of perspective.

“One has the joy of working out in nature with plants and animals but the 'disadvantage' is of having to work at nature's pace nothing can be rushed or forced. So your life is planned around the natural cycles,” he elaborated.

“I'd like to harvest my luffas now but they aren't ripe so I must wait. I could see that as a disadvantage but I prefer to think it gives me time to do other tasks like preparing my garlic seed for planting,” he cited as an example.

Rushing, he says, can prove counter-productive. “I can't plant out my luffas in early spring and get a headstart because of the risk of frost killing them but at the same time the garlic needs the cold weather so it will form into bulbs.

“An old proverb says 'Where you have life you have death' and I don't think any farmer could disagree with that,” Joshua summed up his farming wisdom.