Soleil's Luffa
Luffa acutangula

Harvested one luffa for lunch. This time I cooked it with pork and cellophane noodles. I had too much pork, too little luffa, so the pork dominated the taste. It was still yummy, though.

My two luffa fruits have reached the maturity length, but they were quite narrow. I harvested them anyway. I should probably give the plant some fertilizer.

Tonight I made a luffa dish that my grandma likes to make. The dried shrimps are a little bit sweet, and complement the luffa quite well. The cellophane noodles absorb the sauce and become very flavorful.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

• Two narrow luffas
• One tablespoon of dried shrimps
• One bundle of cellophane noodles
• One clove of garlic

Steps:

1. Soak the dried shrimps in water for an hour.
2. Cook cellophane noodles in boiling water until soft. Drain.
3. Cut luffa into bite-size chucks.
4. Heat wok with oil. Pick the shrimps out of the water and add to the wok. Keep the water.
5. Mince garlic. Add to wok.
6. Add luffa. Cook until it starts to turn translucent.
7. Add the water for soaking shrimps. Cook until boiling.
8. Make room in the middle of the wok. Add cellophane noodles. Add salt.
9. Cook until the cellophane noodles have absorbed most of the sauce.

The two fruits are almost ready to eat. Number three is getting long too.

Two fruits are happily getting long on my luffa. Tonight there were one female and two male flowers in bloom. Looks like the plant is in full production!

Finally, male and female flowers at the same time! All the flowers have ants inside, so they must be carrying the pollen around. Nonetheless I took out the cotton swab. Better safe than sorry!

Wow, five flowers! Unfortunately they are all male. Just a week ago I was having a series of female flowers, and was praying for males. Now I have lots of male flowers, but no more female! I guess I should pray for gender equality instead?

I have been mostly posting about the luffa on the right hand side, which is doing well. The one on the left hand side is a completely different story. It is still very short, and have strange spots on the leaves. I wonder what I can do to make it better.