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Sally Nex

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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: cucamelons

Pick of the month: Cucamelon

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in exotic edibles, greenhouse, pick of the month

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Tags

cucamelons, greenhouse, Melothria scabra, mouse melons, unusual plants, vegetables

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Well. These are very curious little things.

Cucamelons are the latest Big Thing in veg growing: everyone seems to have one or two plants about the place somewhere. So I gave it a try this year, at last, after some years of wondering what all the fuss was about.

I’m still wondering, a bit: the main benefit I can see so far is the cute value.

Cucamelons, aka Melothria scabra, are related to cucumbers, but they come from Mexico. There is in fact lots of argument among botanists as to exactly which bit of the cucumber family it should belong in, as it also counts West African gourds in its ancestry: expect one of those annoying name changes before long.

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I germinated the seed with ease, some time back in April, and they romped away, making slightly weedy-looking tangles of leaf, stem and tendril. They’re much less hefty than a cucumber: more like an annual climber in habit. As a result, they’re also much more difficult to train, quickly forming unruly nests of impenetrable tangle (in fact I gave up in the end and just tied them to their supports as best I could).

You don’t have to grow them in a greenhouse, as I’ve done: they actually prefer slightly cooler conditions than a cucumber, so are happy outside in a sunny spot, too. I decided to err on the side of caution, though, and popped them in on the opposite side to my much heavier-looking cucumber plants.

They started fruiting about a month ago. Teeny-tiny little watermelons, no more than 3cm long and 1cm across, striped prettily and small enough to pop whole into your mouth. They definitely taste of cucumber, but with a little tang of citrussy lemon that’s really very pleasant.

But snacks, so far, they have remained. They aren’t cropping that heavily at the moment (though we still have a couple of growing months and you never know). I’m a bit nonplussed as to what else to do with them, to be honest: a quick Google tells me you can sprinkle them on salads, serve them in cocktails or among olives as a bar snack, or (better) try them in a salsa – come to think of it they aren’t radically different from tomatilloes in flavour, just smaller. And you can pickle them, too.

Well – ours is not really a bar snack kind of household, so we’re mostly just putting them in lunch boxes and picnics at the moment or just leaving them lying around in bowls for people to pick at. Besides, I haven’t got enough fruits to experiment with different dishes just yet. On the plus side, they’re almost completely pest and disease free – my cukes are just starting to yellow with red spider mite (as they always do at this time of year) yet the cucamelons are still brilliant green and perky. And they’re the kind of thing that grows just about anywhere, so you can just see them dangling from a hanging basket, say, or in a vertical planting system draped down a wall.

But in a good productive patch of loam in your greenhouse? Well, just now, I’m a bit ‘meh’ about them so far. Pretty, yes; curiosity value, tick, and they really are very cute – but I’m slightly resenting having handed them good growing space. I’d rather grow watermelons. Or cucumbers.

Life in the greenhouse: August

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by sallynex in exotic edibles, greenhouse, kitchen garden

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Tags

Aji chillies, aubergines, chillies, cucamelons, cucumbers, green peppers, heritage tomatoes, heritage vegetables, life in the greenhouse, overwintering chillies, tomatoes

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Summertime… and the watering is endless….

Every day I am to be found in the greenhouses behind a hose – possibly my least favourite job in the garden. Ah well, I can’t be doing the fun stuff all the time.

It’s a good time, though, to take time just standing and looking at my plants (after all, there’s not much else you can do). Stand staring for a while and you’ll spot that early outbreak of aphids, or the yellow mottling that signals the start of red spider mite. And the earlier you spot trouble, the sooner you can head it off.

In this greenhouse – the cucumber greenhouse this year, which means there are also cucamelons, peppers and an aubergine or two in here, plus an almost-finished pot of mixed salad which really needs to go outdoors – I’ve also been peering at the weed seedlings and noticicing that several are actually self-seeded French marigolds, left over from last year when I underplanted the tomatoes in here with them.

This is very gratifying, as it means a) my tardiness with the weeding has paid off and b) French marigolds can self seed – who knew?! Saves me a lot of time faffing about with seed trays and propagators – all I have to do is leave the heads on to set seed and I’m done.

IMG_4026 The cucumbers are in full production now: and that means I’m in the middle of my annual cucumber glut. I’m picking one or two a day at the moment, far more than we can possibly eat. The plan is to slice and pickle them instead of gherkins (which have – again – been an abject failure this year): must find a recipe.

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And in Greenhouse no. 2 the tomatoes are at last really getting going: I planted them out far too late this year after getting distracted just when I should have been clearing the shelving, late-sown seedlings and containers out, so they hung around in pots much longer than they should have. Just green fruits so far but all looking promising.

These are heritage varieties, and rather special ones at that: they’re from a little packet of treasure sent me by the chap who looks after the 103-variety-strong heritage tomato collection at Knightshayes in Devon. On the right are ‘White Beauty’, aka ‘Snowball’ – a hefty white beefsteak; on the left, ‘Sutton’s Everyday’ which sound nice and reliable; and at the end ‘Jersey Sunrise’ which I’m promised offers exceptional flavour. There are about a dozen other varieties in the package I’m intending to work my way through over the next few years.

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And I couldn’t possibly sign off without mentioning the newest arrival in this side. Over winter I lost my beloved rocoto chilli – it was coming into its fourth year, and last year was so vigorous and enormous it hit the ceiling of the greenhouse and I needed to construct a support frame for it out of 2×1 roofing battens to stop it muscling out the plants around it. Covered in lipstick-scarlet fruits, so many I gave them to family and friends and still had bags left over in the freezer, it was my pride and joy.

I hadn’t done anything particularly different from the previous three years, so I’m thinking that rocotos (also known as tree chillies) are actually just naturally short-lived and don’t last much longer than three or four years.

Anyway, there’s no problem that doesn’t also offer an opportunity: so I took the chance to ring the changes and try another chilli you’re supposed to be able to overwinter. Introducing my Aji chilli: aka Capsicum baccatum and another of the slightly hardier, earlier fruiting varieties. This one has yellow fruits, much more like cayenne types in that they’re thin-skinned, so I should be able to dry them (unlike rocotos which are too fleshy) and also not quite as hot as the tongue-blistering fruits on my lost plant.

As before, I’ve planted it in the greenhouse border; as before, I’m expecting it to reach a spectacular height and generally become a bit of a talking point. Watch this space!

This month in the garden…

04 Saturday Jun 2016

Posted by sallynex in greenhouse, kitchen garden, my garden, this month in the garden

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Tags

asparagus, brassicas, comfrey tea, cucamelons, gooseberries, peas, quince blight, quinces, this month in the garden

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Lupins coming along nicely in the cutting garden…

It is June! Not very flaming, so far, but very busy. Here’s what I’ll be up to:

Making comfrey tea: the first harvest from my comfrey patch is in and stuffed unceremoniously into a bucket. Six weeks and a lot of whiffiness later I’ll have potassium-rich home made fertiliser.

Tying up peas: Why is it that just when you think you’ve tied in the last pea plant another tendril makes a bid for freedom? I am getting very good at tying knots…

LOTS of strimming

DITTO weeding

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Mmm…. comfrey tea stewing away (the bricks you can see just under the surface were above water yesterday)

Planting up the greenhouses: cucumbers and cucamelons in, tomatoes still waiting for the shelving-and-propagator setup to be dismantled

Shunting young plants out into the garden just as fast as I can get them out there – this time of the year we’re down to minimal hardening off (and occasionally none at all)

Fretting about my quince tree: it has developed worrying signs of quince leaf blight. It looks just like tomato or potato blight in that lots of brown blotches start spreading across the leaves. There is no defence bar picking off affected leaves – and that means nearly every leaf on the tree. And it’s a big tree.

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Peas – here Oregon Sugar Pod – making a break for the border again. Now where’s my string…

Harvesting asparagus: one of the best crops of the year. The spears are still largely spindly – the plants are in their third year – but I’m now getting some promisingly fat ones, too.

Planting up the brassica beds: slightly belatedly, as the calabrese have been fretting at their pots for weeks, but everything is now ready to go out under insect-proof mesh (I have already spotted at least two cabbage whites on the wing).

Netting the gooseberries: an enterprising blackbird found its way under the bushes last year and snaffled every last berry, but this year I’m a step ahead. I don’t think I’ve ever had to net gooseberries before – far too prickly for birds to bother with – but it’s my guess that growing them as cordons as I do might make them easier to pick for other enterprising creatures as well as me…

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