Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumber
 

Well I guess it's not actually a cucumber but more of a melon.

I'm growing it this year and was wondering if anyone else was or has in the past.

I got the seeds from SSE.

Here is what they say:

[quote]
[I][I](Melothria scabra)[/I] Newly rediscovered heirloom. Produces abundant crops of 1-2" fruits that have the appearance of miniature watermelons, and fall off the vines when ripe. Sweet cucumber flavor, contrasted by a surprising sourness, as if they are already pickled! Great for growing on a trellis. 60-70 days.
[/I][/quote]
[I][IMG]http://www.seedsavers.org/images/1192.jpg[/IMG][/I]

[I]here is how it looks in my garden[/I]
[I][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/tomatobully/DSCN1774.jpg[/IMG][/I]
[I][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v217/tomatobully/DSCN1775.jpg[/IMG][/I]

Wow! that is a very interesting variety. Be sure to tell us how they taste.

Duane

I'll second what Duane said. Ami

I just realized I've got seed for it, may be to late to plant.

Ive read they are ONLY worth eating after falling off ripe, might benefit from a groundcloth? I think Mother Earth News had a little blurb a year ago or so...?

they are SUPER cute. do they get the same diseases as cucumbers or squash? (yours look gorgeous Bully!)

I have some of those growing too! They're tiny. I had read about waiting for them to fall off, but keep thinking I won't be able to find it when they do. Have you eaten one yet Bully?

Jen

I grew them last year. I had saved some seed from a prior year and thought they might not be viable as the seed seemed small and thin....so I sowed them quite thick just in case.
They came up and produced and produced and fell off the vine everywhere.......so this year they are volunteering in my garden! Patty

but how do they taste?

I've been eating those things by the bowl for the last month. I really like them. Picked early and they taste pretty bland but crunchy and refreshing. Dead ripe and they have a definite zing!

I grew those a few years ago and while they were very cute, I didn't think much of the taste :( They vine heartily so if you have something to cover, might as well try them. I'm not sure what I would use them for if I planted a row but I only planted a few seeds at the end of a row. You can't use them like cucumbers. What did you end up doing with them? Lori

I got another small community garden plot and while clearing it, I found some of these tiny striped fruits on the ground under a dead vine. They look interesting and I'm planning to save some seed and grow them next year.

Has anyone else grown them? How did they taste, and how did you use them?

[QUOTE=habitat_gardener;312082]I got another small community garden plot and while clearing it, I found some of these tiny striped fruits on the ground under a dead vine. They look interesting and I'm planning to save some seed and grow them next year.

Has anyone else grown them? How did they taste, and how did you use them?[/QUOTE]

I grow them. Taste like cucumbers. But they are small. I use them in salads whole along with whole grape tomatoes baby carrots and baby micro greens and whatever lettuces etc....Very interesting and tastey salad. Always gets a comment when I serve it to someone new. I call it baby veggie salad.

Another way I have used them is pickled whole. Tiny bites of pickles suitable for salads or relish trays. Again also gets comments. I think because of the new fad of baby veggies and micro greens at the markets.

The one thing you have to watch is letting them get too ripe. Once they turn very dark green almost black, they take on a strangely unpleasant sweet "off" flavor and texture. I suppose some people might like them this way, but not me.

They are the only cucurbit I have been able to raise thay doesn't eventually succumb to squash bugs in my locarion. This is why I continue to raise them. Trying to crack the code of how to raise my other melons cucumbers and squash without pesticides. However, I haven't figured it out yet.

I've grown [I]Melothria scabra[/I] (a.k.a. Mexican Sour Gherkin or Mouse Melon) several times over the years. They are not true gherkins, which are [I]Cucumis anguria[/I]... MSG is just a name someone came up with for marketing. The vines, while heavily branched, seldom grow over 6' & are easily trellised. As you can see from the photo in the original post, the petite vines are fairly attractive. They take awhile to get started, so if I want to increase my chances of getting seed here, I need to start them early as transplants. This is not as hard as you might think; MSG will tolerate artificial lighting better than most cucurbits, grows fairly slowly as a seedling, and won't get too leggy. I start them indoors 3-4 weeks before I expect to plant them outdoors.

When the vines begin blooming, they will form a cluster of male flowers & one female flower at each new leaf node. Habitat, if you have seen Chayote in bloom, the flower structure at the node looks similar... just a lot smaller. As you can imagine, if you have a fruit at each leaf node of a well-branched vine, you will get a lot of them, so you don't need many plants. You need bees or other pollinators to get fruit; but given that, a single plant will self pollinate.

For me, the best use was to pick them young, while only 1/2" long or so. At this stage, they taste much like a fairly sour cucumber, and have quite a bit of crunch. Like Redbaron, I use them in salads, along with young West Indian gherkins, grape tomatoes, and radish pods. I didn't like the fruits when they reached 1" size, and IMO, they were horrible when they dropped.

The ones that drop are most often ripe, with fully developed seeds, so those are the ones to save seed from. To get seed, I allow those ripe fruits to sit indoors until they begin to soften, then cut them in half, squeeze them, and put them in a container to ferment. The process is similar to fermenting tomato seeds. When fermentation has freed the seeds from their membranes (which takes several days, depending upon temperature) I beat the mixture with a wire whisk to release the seeds, add water in a tall container, and float off the debris. The good seeds will sink to the bottom. Properly dried & stored, those tiny seeds will still have good germination for 8-10 years.

I'm really interested in the method used to pickle MSG, and the quality of the resulting product. That was one of the uses I originally considered, but my one attempt resulted in a semi-gelatinous product which was completely unpalatable. I have come to believe that the fruit I used at the time were over ripe, but I have not tried it again since.

I was just about to write a comment about this veggie, when I red through Zeedman's post and he allready confirmed my experience with it. I grow it every year and love it.
The only thing I resent them is that they start coming in quite late in the season, usually in September, when the temps drop down some.
But I still grow them as my beds are infected with Cucumber Mosaic Virus, so I can't grow other cucurbits with much success. These are really nice to munch on in the garden and are disease free...

I also pickled them and had some that were great and some that were too soft and 'soggy'. I think the over ripe ones were actually better. Should check that out again next year. I did like the taste though...

I will be growing these for these for the first time this year. I will be pickling the fruit and eating fresh as Baron described. 2 years ago my cucurbits did great...last year it was a horrible crop with everything succumbing to powdery mildew.

I really hope they thrive.

Grew these two years ago and they were a lot of fun. I didn't do them last year because while they were tasty, it took a lot to make a serving and I didn't think we got that much from it.

A couple of weeks ago, my son asked if I would please plant these again this year! (He doesn't usually ask.) Turns out that the reason I didn't get that many was because he was out there every few days raiding the vines!

Guess we'll have to make room!

Hahah what a wonderful story :)

I've grown them for the past couple years. They do have a very mildly sour aftertaste that is pleasing. Keeping them on-hand is nearly impossible since they get consumed almost as fast as they are picked! My experience is that they grow fast and begin to fruit quickly. : )

great! thanks Garden frog.

Do any of you folks recall how high these will grow if you trellis them?

I have (I think) a relative of this plant - [I]Melothria pendula[/I] - growing in my flower beds, herb garden and over a rose bush. I can't get rid of the stupid thing - it is very difficult to pull out the whole plant, and it is so delicate that it can hide and grow unnoticed until it starts to cover things. Plus, it fruits abundantly, so there must be seeds everywhere.

I'm not sure how to tell the difference between [I]M. pendula[/I] and [I]M. scabra[/I], but I assume I have pendula as it is native to the southeast. It does smell like cucumbers! But based on my experience with it, I'd be hesitant to plant the other lest it take over too!

We didn't let ours get ripe and dark green. We thought they were a little too tough and sour at that point. We ate ours when they were still a lighter green and they tasted like refreshing little cukes.

Mine were slow to get going. REALLY slow! But once they had about four leaves, all of a sudden they took off! I would almost grow these just for the adorable little leaves and tiny yellow flowers at every juncture.

[QUOTE=livinonfaith;320991]We didn't let ours get ripe and dark green. We thought they were a little too tough and sour at that point. We ate ours when they were still a lighter green and they tasted like refreshing little cukes.

Mine were slow to get going. REALLY slow! But once they had about four leaves, all of a sudden they took off! I would almost grow these just for the adorable little leaves and tiny yellow flowers at every juncture.[/QUOTE]

Awesome to hear!

I really hope my cucumbers do well this season. I was thoroughly discouraged last year. Im going to try and trellis them over a CRW arch trellis between the two beds...we'll see :)

I just saw the OP photo of it... so that's what they are. Had some growing wild along my fence for years. Always cut them down thinking they were some kind of weed. Seems they are hardy to diseases that kills most tomatoes and cucumbers. Only the birds would eat them, or so I thought. I'll take a taste of them next time they come up.

[QUOTE=Crandrew;322719]... I really hope my cucumbers do well this season. I was thoroughly discouraged last year. Im going to try and trellis them over a CRW arch trellis between the two beds...we'll see :)[/QUOTE]

There's a great photo of that kind of trellis at the bottom of this page

[url]http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Winter20082009/TomatoTrellis/tabid/1019/Default.aspx[/url]

[QUOTE=HiPoha;322738]I just saw the OP photo of it... so that's what they are. Had some growing wild along my fence for years. Always cut them down thinking they were some kind of weed. Seems they are hardy to diseases that kills most tomatoes and cucumbers. Only the birds would eat them, or so I thought. I'll take a taste of them next time they come up.[/QUOTE]

It's suggested you pick them young to eat fresh or pickle them and they are supposedly yummy and as you said disease resistant.

I took a look at my fence today and found some of these things again. They may be a relative of the Mexican Gherkin. They get red when fully ripe. I tasted a green one and it was very bitter.

They may be some sort of relative, but they are too large to be a Mexican Gherkin. The stripes and leaves aren't quite right, either. Also, the Mexican Sour Gherkin doesn't ripen to red. It falls off while still green.

Here are a couple of things that look similar to that. This doesn't show the leaves. I googled some of them and some show similar leaves to yours and some are quite different. Some of them are poisonous, so be careful!

[url]http://www.kcb-samen.ch/shop/?cPath=1403_1423&osCsid=af114f85485efb58e2ac258ff0c137ac[/url]

This one has very similar leaves, but the fruit ends up orange and it isn't quite as elongated as yours.

[url]http://www.kcb-samen.ch/shop/product.php?cPath=1403_1427&products_id=910350&osCsid=af114f85485efb58e2ac258ff0c137ac[/url]

Yours is pretty cool, even if only as a plant specimen!

Great info!

Livinonfaith:
Thanks for the info, I think my plant is the coccinia grandis or scarlet gourd, not the Mexican Gherkin. Turns out it is considered a weed here in Hawaii although they can be eaten.

Well why not give it a try :) Do you think you could pickle the fruit?