Sweet Potato

I had a good crop of sweet potatoes this year.   I let their vines trail throughout the garden because they don't have tendrils to attach to other plants.

Luffas...From Garden to Shower!

One of the more exciting things that I grew in my garden in 2013 was luffas.  When I told people I was growing luffas, the first thing they would say is, "I thought luffas grew in the ocean..."
They are actually grown on long vines that resemble cucumber vines.  The luffas themselves look like strange cucumbers, as you can see from the pictures below.

I was able to give the luffas for holiday gifts.  They just about took over my garden because they require so much space, though, so I'm not sure I will grow them again.  They were fun to grow though!  My kids had fun helping with the harvest.

This is how the luffa starts out.

This is a young luffa that is not ready to pick.  It is really heavy and mushy on the inside.

This one is almost ripe.  The inside is forming into a structured sponge-like shape.


 When the luffa becomes light and hollow-feeling inside, it is ready to harvest.  Some turn a brownish shape on the outside as well, which is a good indication that they are ready.  Luffas require a long growing season and even though I got my seeds in the ground really early I still had to discard a lot of luffas that were not yet mature.

When you harvest the luffa, you bang the luffa on the hard ground to crack the outer shell, peel off the rough, shell-like outer skin, squeeze the black pumpkin-like seeds and pulp out, and then rinse several times with water to get the sap out.

Then you squeeze as much moisture as you can out of the luffa and dry in the sun.  As it dries, it becomes firm and rigid.

Here is about half of my season's harvest, all dried and ready to use!  I cut the ends off of the luffa to make more uniform shapes, and then cut them in half.  As you can see, each luffa can get to be more than a foot long!

Ears

We be eatin' corn tonight!

Despite Neglect...

Despite a lot of neglect on my part this year, my garden is producing well.  I started working part-time in the winter, and since then I have found little time for gardening.  Luckily we have gotten lots of rain this year so it made up for my neglect.

Here's today's harvest:

 Here are some side profiles of the garden this year:

Hopefully we will be able to eat the corn and okra soon!

How Sweet it is

How sweet it is...and well worth the wait!

Same Old never gets Old

This year I'm doing pretty much the same old, same old in my garden.  Nothing new.  I'm growing a lot  but there's nothing really exciting for me to blog about.

But this never gets old:

It's always exciting for me to put food on the table that was picked hours or minutes before serving.

Visitor

 Today we had a visitor in our backyard.   I went outside between rains to let our dog out and came across this guy.

 With all of the rain we've had this week, I think he was confused.

Greenery

 Primrose

 Woolly thyme

Grapes

After a brief rain this afternoon I took a look at my grapevine.  

Could it be more humid?

 I can't wait to taste these grapes!

Winter Greenery

We recently harvested some broccoli and lettuce from the kids' plot.  We made a huge delicious salad.  I wasn't sure if we would actually have success with the broccoli but we did.