Loofah (luffa) Update

 Hello

Update on the loofahs (luffas) before I start the whole process off again

This first pic is taken slightly later than the one in my last post. You will note that there are two different types. To the left the fruits are marrow-ish shape and plain green. The plant to your right is longer, thinner and has black stripes down it.  I wasn't able to get them to the brown, dry phase, when you are suppose to hear the seeds rattling, so I went back to the good old internet and found that you can still succeed with green fruits so long as they were fairly mature.

This next pic shows how I peeled the fruits.In the stripey plants the seeds were black. The plain green fruits had pale brown seed. These peeled fruits I put in a bowl of water . I squeezed, rinsed and teased off any flesh, while changing the water daily, for about ten days. During this time the seeds kept floating out, these I fished out and dried. I saved an awful lot of seed this way, which I am hoping will be viable next year. 

When all the seeds had floated out and the ;last vestiges of flesh had gone I gave the loofahs a final rinse, dried them and....Tah Dah !!...

I harvested twelve from two plants. Three are ,missing from this picture as my daughter has snaffled them.

 The scrappy bits I have tied together to make splendid pan scourers.

If anybody wants to have a go growing some next year from my (not guaranteed viable ) seed I am quite happy to send them some for them to try. I started mine off on the 9th February 2020. so allow for a longish growing season.

 All for now. Just off to search for a picture of my first great grandchild to bore you with !

Love Gillx

 Well Hello It's me!!!

It is many weeks since I wrote here. I completely lost my blogging mojo and have been somewhat overwhelmed with keeping on top of things here on the smallholding.

I confess to not even visiting my favourite blogs, apart from one day when I found out that Sue from Suffolk had sold her house and I didn't even know she was wanting to move. I realised that it had been so long since I visited blogland that I would never be able to catch up so fresh start here both writing and reading as we move into 2021.

I'm going to have a go at blogging (and reading blogs) on the same day each week and see if I can get back into the swing of it.

So for now dear bloggy friends, if indeed there are any left reading my ramblings

A VERY HAPPY AND PEACEFUL NEW YEAR TO YOU

Love Gillx