Hello Hive
Today I have some fluted pumpkins that have developed so well that one can harvest their leaves for herbal purposes. A neighbor came to know just yesterday that her daughter was short on blood, and she has been advised to prepare some frozen pumpkin juice for her to drink.
Most of the commoners here believe that fluted pumpkins can be used to boost blood levels in the event of anemia. This is somewhat true, as medical experiments with the leaves confirmed that they have a high level of iron and protein, thus the hematinic properties seen.
Recently, I have almost forgotten about the fluted pumpkins due to over engagement in a lot of other activities, but when I went to pluck some leaves for my neighbor yesterday, I noted some damage to the leaves. Some of the branches have dried up for reasons I am yet to figure out, while the leaves were getting infected. It seems like almost every plant is experiencing a pesticide infestation this season. Even though I have the chemical for control now, having gotten some from the store, I forgot to ask about the timing required for one to wait after applying this chemical.
While using inorganic chemicals on our farms, it is important to know the periods when the chemical activity will wear off from our vegetables to avoid food poisoning. You can't apply a chemical reagent to vegetables and harvest them the next day for food; this will be really harmful. For rice and the other crops in the field, the harvest time of those crops is usually far away from when they were planted; hence, these don't constitute any harm, but for vegetables that we consume almost immediately, one must take precautions.
The pestilence ravaging the vegetables has been one of the major reasons why we needed to add chemicals to our veggies if at all we would grow some veggies for our meals. I was able to fetch some leaves for my neighbors use and teach them how to save the pumpkin from getting totally damaged.
I feel so satisfied having some useful vegetables here and am also looking forward to how much I can take care of this to benefit many people, including myself. Fluted pumpkins are nevertheless a perfect addition to our garden.
To prepare the juice, you only need to wash the leaves clean and squeeze them into clean, drinkable water.
The juice smells really bad, like every other herb, so it's best to mix it with malt drinks so that our children can find it easier to drink.
Aside from drinking, eating fluted pumpkin leaves on a daily basis and adding them to our meals also boosts blood levels.
