I recently read a newspaper article about dishwashing sponges and that they often contain unacceptable levels of bacteria.
I’m sure for those that read the article, the very thought of smearing contaminated sponges over the family dishes would be quite repulsive. I’ve been in the habit of using luffas for washing the dishes and I know that they don’t hold all that gunge as their commercial counterparts do. I also use a luffa in the shower as a body scrubber and they rinse out nice and clean. It’s all in the loose but wiry fibres that make up the luffa texture that makes them so attractive for everyday use. They seem to last for ages as well.
Growing your own luffas is easy and the time to plant is in spring to summer. This vine loves to grow in full sun right throughout the summer months and it loves to climb on a trellis of some sort. The luffa vine is very productive and you really don’t need to keep all the fruits for washing the dishes with. The young fruits are very edible and can be harvested at around 10cm long. Cook them as you would zucchinis or just throw them into the cooking pot along with the other veggies.
Growing the luffa in the summer garden is one of the many choices of vegetables that we can grow in this wonderful sub-tropical climate of ours. The summer garden can be tremendously productive by growing tropical vegetables instead of the common temperate varieties that seem to struggle here in the hotter summer months.
