Remember the instant trellis.Instant Trellis

Now it is the angled luffa green wall.Angled Luffa on trellis

The house behind it hadn’t started being built when I took the photo of the instant trellis.

I have had some angled luffa seeds for a couple of years now purchased from Green Harvest. The packet said best sown before Sept 2016. I was waiting for the trellis.

Notes from the packet

Synonym – Okra Cee Gwa. Okra Vine is fast growing and vigorous. The flavour of the young fruit is similar to zucchini but slightly sweeter, it is a good substitute in humid areas as it does not suffer fungal problems. The stem tops, young leaves and flower buds can also be steamed as vegetables and the seeds from mature fruit roasted with salt and eaten.

I can vouch that it is a vigorous grower. As well as the luffa, I planted some winged bean and New Guinea bean against the trellis, which is 6 metres long. The luffa has smothered both of the other vines and grows so quickly that pruning it is a lost cause.

Because the seeds were old I planted at least six of them. They all germinated and went beserk. I soaked them overnight before planting.angled luffa grow quickly

These luffa are just a couple that I picked. I hadn’t checked the vine for two days as all I had been seeing were small luffa that didn’t seem to be growing. I’d find a small fruit but thought it was dropping off before growing to maturity. Looks like I was wrong and they were hiding.

The big ones in the picture are over 60cm in length (two feet) in the old scale. The smaller one is in with dinner tonight. Young luffa

 

The Angled Luffa Taste Test

Angled luffa CutForCooking

I chopped the smaller luffa of the three pictured into bite sized bits. They were placed in a microwave container with a few drops of water and sprinkled with some rock salt.

Microwaved for two minutes. They were Zucchini like on the inside with a little bit of crunchy texture on the outside that wasn’t at all stringy. Very edible and in my opinion a little bit of a soy bean flavour. Well worth growing in sub-tropical Brisbane.

What have we learnt on the show tonight Craig

Only grow one vine. If more than two seeds germinate, be ruthless. I am looking forward to trying the roasted seeds of mature luffa. Will do an update then.

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