Growing loofahs!

Seeing as working in a ‘zero waste’ fashion requires thinking about the whole lifecycle of our produce, Louiza and Adam have been establishing even closer links between our garden and kitchen. One thing that they immediately discovered they were mutually excited to try, was growing a loofah plant! Loofahs are vegetables in the gourd family, most commonly picked, dried and skinned then used as sponges. If we could grow these here at Minstead Study Centre, even if we only managed one and used it just as an educational tool, we could take our showcase of how we use our own garden to support the reduction of waste in our kitchen to another level! Throughout 2019, we grew a few plants, of which some dazzled us with loofahs (supposedly they are very difficult to grow in this country!). We now have a couple of dried sponges, one to use and one to keep hold of for teaching. We are very excited to have our own homegrown, natural kitchen sponge on site – completely biodegradable and entirely packaging/plastic-free!