This year we tried something new and grew these guys. I had no idea a loofah was grown in the garden and not in the ocean. Thankfully I'm not alone in that thought either. Almost all the youtube videos I watched said the same thing. lol. So Abby planted these along the fence behind the sweet potatoes. They turned out to be a really pretty vine with beautiful yellow flowers. They grew and grew and finally started seeing the fruit take shape. We harvested them right after a freeze since they will ruin, even though they weren't completely ready. It worked out fine for the loofahs themselves, but we weren't able to harvest any seeds from these guys. We know to plant them earlier next year.
The process of getting the skins off and the pulp out was quite an extensive one! I tried a couple of different methods and there were pros and cons to both. Half of them I baked. which made the skins come off much easier. The other half I skinned green, and boy was that difficult. The baked ones have a brown tent to them, while the green skinned ones were a prettier white, plus if the seeds were older and viable, I could have saved them. I'm not sure what I'll do with them next year. I might find two more ways to ger the loofah out. Once they were skinned, they required a lor of washing and rinsing and eventaully drying. The process was tideous, but I have since discovered very worth it! I love washing dishes with my new loofahs! They are the coolest thing I personally thing we have ever grown. I am very happy with them and can't wait to grow them again next year!
They looked like corn on the cob drying out there. This was only a portion of what we harvested. I think we ended up with about 24 good ones. That will last us a couple of years!
No comments:
Post a Comment