I've just started my seeds, I'm in zone 8. Everything that I read said to start it early if you have a short growing season, but I don't have personal experience as of yet... this is my first year with it.

I don't know if it will work, but sow the seed in peat pots. When you put the pots out, make sure to tear the peat "liner" down below the soil line.

DP

I started mine in 6 packs last year using regular potting soil, and in April put them in the ground. They survived without incident. This year I winter sowed some seed. We'll see....

Just because a plant doesn't like being transplanted, doesn't mean it's not possible. If you have a short growing season sometime exceptions must be made. Just be sure you introduce them to the outside gradually and in increments to harden them off to the outside weather. Don't just bring them outside one day and plant them in the ground out of the blue.

Some of those gourds take a long time to germinate, even at the higher germination temperatures they prefer. If you transplant immediately after the plant comes up, while it still has only seed leaves and no true leaves, it usually adapts to the garden without gradual introduction. Firm the tiny plant in well and water.

Some people don't have a good setup for transplanting larger seedlings, which may be why some people fail at it and some succeed. You might also try putting down black or green plastic over the planting site a couple of weeks before planting to warm the soil. Could speed the growth of your plants.

I live in Zone 5 (Chicago area) and started it from seeds in March. This photo was taken on July 20th and the fruit is 3 feet long then:

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In late May, I transplanted two seedlins into two big containers with a 10+ gal water reservior at the bottom. At the time of transplanting, the seedling is already five feet high.

You can see the container that I use in this video - My Vegetable Garden.

nan123: Wow, beautiful garden! Would you mind describing how you set up the luffa pots? I would love to try growing it that way. Thanks

I'm in central NY also zone 5. I tried starting this indoors in March a couple of years back. We have frost here until late May / early June. It grew really well indoors but I had a problem with it trying to attach itself to everything including the window blinds that were drawn up. It was really difficult to detach it and take it outside. I also didn't have much time to slowly acclimate it to the outside world so most of the leaves that came out while inside of the house got sun burned and eventually faded away. The plant itself still grew pretty well and I had a couple of luffas but I'm not sure I really got any extras from starting it indoors. The plant had to spend a lot of time growing new leaves to replace the old ones. It was my first time growing it and I had very low expectations of it because it is suppose to be a tropical plant. The fact that it germinated at all made me pretty happy already. I also had problems with the luffas getting bitter even when I picked them while they were small to medium size.

Last year I grew bottle gourds. Started outside. Got going well then mildew got them before the gourds had a chance to fully mature.
From What I know, growing large gourds, bottle, swan, snake, lufa are the same. they need a long growing season
(and no mildew?) They grow up to 100 feet long. So you have to have either treliss or trees around for them to clime.
With bottle gourds, they have to be trained (managed) to clime as they do not have tenderils like cucumbers.
This year I am going to try lufa and large bottle (birdhouse) gourds. I need advice on preventing mildew desease. Does anyone knows what to do about it?

They say that these gourds cannot be transplanted, becaous they have, probably, deep roots. So that the best alternative would be peat pots(individual). Of couse, if you are in zones 7,8,9,..You don't need growing then indoors, just direct seed them in late march or early April.
But be prepared to manage 100 foot long vines.
some advice on bottle gourds:
Pinch the main when about 12 foot long, to encourage lateral branching.Female flowers will mostly grow on laterals.
Polination is yet another issue. Since the flowers open late in the evening and at night, There are not (or may not be) insects around to polinate them. So you may do it yoursels, instead of the insects. I can tell you how to do it, if need to know.The same goes for ornamental little gourds too. With lufa, I do not know yet.

I tried couple of years to grow Sigua and failed.
Always though my zone 6+ is not warm enough. After seeing nan123's crop, I'm very encouraged and maybe give it a try this year.

All gourds, especially big-fruited ones like birdhouse, luffa, swan, etc need a long growing season. These are hard shell gourds as such they must be matured on vine.
You can have young fruits even in zone 4, to cook and eat them. But these gourds normally are grown for their arts-n-crfts uses.

I am in zone 8 and have direct planted Birdhouse, Luffa and swan gourds. It takes moderate soil temperatures for them to germinate. Also in the beginning they work on their roots development to get ready to grow fast, some times one foot a day.