This year we are growing African jelly melon for the first time in our gardens.
Wendy shares her experience with growing African jelly melon in a recent comment:
I saw on recent videos that you were trying the Kiwano AKA African horned cucumber AKA jelly melon in your garden this year.Â
I tried Kiwano for the first time about 4 growing seasons ago. I have found that they do not require their own growing spot and are fantastic to grow under other plants if you are pressed for space in your garden area. For me, they have happily grown under and in competition with my Curcubita moschata mixed variety/landrace for 3 years now.
The first year I gave them their own space. It was the second year that a couple of self seeded plants came up under my butternut/mixed cross pumpkin plants, and I noticed that the kiwano plants produced prolifically in spite of the competition.
I deliberately planted them near the pumpkin the third year and again, the kiwano successfully produced many fruit without being given any consideration of space or nutrition.
About 3 weeks ago I harvested season 4 – a couple of plants had got under the mandarine tree and I had fruit growing up in the tree amongst the mandarines (as well as under the pumpkins where I had deliberately planted them). I have more fruit now than I think I can possibly eat in the next 6 months and all without giving them their own space or any attention at all.
Additionally, I find the kiwano to be amazing for storage, which is why I first grew them. I had read, I think Carol Deppe was the author, that they kept perhaps 8 months (if I recall correctly) without special efforts at storage. I have found that to be true. I can, without any special preservation method but simply separating the fruit in flat boxes so they don’t pierce each other, keep the kiwano for eating over winter and spring until only a couple of weeks before the next regular cucumber is expected from the summer garden. I do find that most of the kiwano fruit is produced in autumn, so continue to plan to eat regular cucumbers from early summer through to early autumn.
To eat, I peel the younger green ones with a paring knife and slice to put in salads. They taste very similar to regular cucumber eaten that way. When they get a bit older and the flesh starts to get a yellow hue, I found that at that stage I don’t enjoy eating the flesh around the seeds, so at that stage I scoop the flesh out with a spoon and avoid the firmer yellowing parts.
I hope you will add them to your survival plant profiles. I can safely say that they are now a keeper in my garden.
I am in a somewhat drier climate I think than you, with wet cool winters and hot dry summers. However the Kiwanos have done well even in the recent wetter than average years for me. I hope you have similar success.
Ours are already running like crazy. I planted 5-8 or so, here and there. A couple of them are in compost piles with pumpkins, and others are on their own in either mulch or right in the ground in the food forest.
Papa Pepper on YouTuber warns that they are super vigorous and shares how his look in the garden:
Whelp, I didn’t plan for all that, so it’s gonna be fun to watch them eat trees, shrubs and the grass in the food forest.
One has already almost completely covered my sole goumi berry bush in the food forest, so I think I’m going to have to prune the vines back so it doesn’t kill the poor thing.
Another one is becoming a quite aggressive ground cover beneath a mulberry.
If they run 100′ and produce a hundred melons each, we’re going to be swimming in them by fall! I hope we like eating them. If not, I’ll feed them to a pig and turn them into bacon.
Perhaps we can use some of them early to make pickles when our cucumbers run out in a month or two.
They may also make an appearance in Daisy’s seed store if they work well in this climate and seem to be useful enough to keep.
It’s fun testing new crops. We’ve found some very interesting new additions to our “easy to grow” list via trying plants and seeing how they do in our climate. Add a few new things every year and see how they do. You might discover something amazing you can add to your regular growing rotation! Minimalist Gardening for the win.
Also, if you want the inside track on creating food forests and would like to ask questions and learn from other gardeners, please join us at the new Skool Survival Gardening group.
*Image of jelly melon via Tijana Drndarski (Pexels) / (Instagram).
9 comments
Ash from Australia.
Never again will I grow this and three years later I’m still chipping out seedlings.
Prickly hand grenade fruit, cannot give them away ! They do store well but very invasive spiky vine.
Got to work with a machete on my last crop !
Have fun, enjoy
That’s amazing. What did they taste like? Were they actually good to eat?
They grow wild in my compost every year here in South Carolina. Like slightly tart cucumbers. I never knew their name; we always just call them dragon fruit. I probably get a hundred a year or so and have never planted them once. They just show up in the compost year over year.
That’s really cool. I bet they self-seed here, too. We already have some small fruit developing.
Really fun fruit to grow! It was the most productive thing I grew in Pensacola last year. Got my seeds from Baker Creek. Grew only one plant on a cattle panel trellis. The vines were HUGE. Almost removed it before the fall, because I had zero fruit all summer, just tons and tons of vines. As soon as the weather cooled, it fruited like crazy. I had so much, I’m still pulling them out of the freezer for smoothies. I liked the taste, but they were pretty seedy, similar to pomegranate in texture. Fresh tropical kiwi-like flavor. Can slice when young like a cucumber. Great survival crop- required basically no care. I stopped watering it in the drought/extreme heat we got last summer and it just kept getting bigger. I probably wont grow it again for a while because I have limited space and it was somewhat difficult for me to eat in such a large quantity. Good luck! Can’t wait to hear how it goes for you! Thank you for your videos! I have learned so much from you (and gotten more than a few good laughs too!)
I’m growing it for the first time and Wendy’s comment was very helpful. Sounds like it would make a great living mulch. They are definitely one of the most vigorous vines I have ever grown.
I planted them twice. Once I didn’t have to replant for several years. Then, when hubby said enough in that spot, we picked even the smallest ones to keep from reseeding. They overtook pecan trees that are probably seventy years old at least. So they are very tall climbers.
I didn’t think they were as sour as the description in Baker Creek at the time I purchased. They are kinda like eating chia or flax seed gel without the hard seed. Ours didn’t change colors until October. We’re in SE Texas.
I told my kids’ friends they were alien frog eggs. I also told them if I caught them leaving trash while they were trespassing at the pond, I was going to let my kids throw the melons at them lol
I cut them in half for the chickens and quail. And I cut the spines off for the rabbits ( in moderation) and cows. I believe the whole plant is edible or medicinal. I’d have to read it again to be sure.
Oh, and the cows will replant for you. I’m not sure they will eat them in the field because of the spines but that might be something to consider.
We picked them up in buckets and they kept for a while even though they didn’t get hard like a winter squash. I’d feed them to the animals and they got eaten up except for a few that were gross at the bottom of the bucket and I dumped it to the chickens. I figured if any sprouted there, the chickens would eat the sprouts anyway.
Oh YES! I grew up eating what you call wild cucumber melons.
I absolutely love them. I only know them by the native name “Garka”. Our children and grand children also love them.
This year I had 3 trellis with them growing on.
Had a abundance of them. Shared them with many people.
That is fantastic – thank you.
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