SIMPLE TIMES BY SU Z Y Mc C RAY
Eat Them ...
use them to wash your THE(orThanksgiving CO-OP PANTRY dishes!) This month our meals will include a new-to-us vegetable whose blooms can be battered and fried, and whose “fruit” can be similarly cooked. This vegetable can also be used to SCRUB our dishes when we’re through eating Thanksgiving dinner! What other vegetable can you grow that you can eat plus scrub your truck with? Or even use to soap your body during a luxurious bath?
Loofahs can be grown in pots if you have room for them to climb.
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Cooperative Farming News
Like us you may have thought a loofah “sponge” was something that came from deep within the ocean, and prices online for organic ones can make you think they are indeed a rare luxury. But we have discovered that those wonderful sponges can be grown simply and even in pots (if you have room for them to climb) in our bright Alabama sunshine! You can use the blooms raw in salads or fry them like you would yellow crookneck squash blooms. The fruit of the younger gourds can be sliced and cooked like any other squash, either baked or fried. According to the USDA, loofahs contain lots of vitamins A, B5, B6 and C as well as manganese, potassium and copper. The older loofahs can either be left to ripen on the vines or picked and left to dry. (We’re experimenting by letting some dry inside the greenhouse.) They
Young loofahs can be sliced and cooked like any other squash.
