BACK AGAIN - THE KIWANO AKA AFRICAN HORNED JELLY MELON

These are a great garden crop and they are starting to produce for us!

When I first encountered these at a local health food store, I was happy to see that they were locally grown too! Since they had a lot of seeds inside, I figured that we might as well give them a try and see if we could get the seeds to germinate. Sure enough, they worked, so this is our third year growing them now, and they are beginning to produce fruit!

HERE COME THE KIWANOS

The Kiwano is a very interesting plant. It grows as a long vine that can get up to about 100 feet long. The vine itself has tiny little "hairs" or spikes that can cause you to itch a little bit, but nothing lasting like stinging nettle or poison ivy. So far I've just been growing them on fence lines or cattle panel archways, but I may need to figure out something bigger and better, since these plants can really grow.

The vines eventually produce tiny little yellow flowers that look similar to a cucumber flower. The fruit, however, does not look like a cucumber. In fact, it looks more like a pufferfish! At this point, they are still tiny and the biggest ones are only over an inch in length. Soon, they will grow to about five inches long before finally turning yellow.

These are what the fully ripe fruits look like. They are very poky, but still a delicious snack. Inside, they have a bunch of seeds that are shaped similar to cucumber seeds, except that they are wrapped in tiny little "gel packets," hence the common name "jelly melon."

The Kiwano is another interesting plant that we just happened to encounter which works out really well for us. Not only do the Hive account@little-peppers love to eat them, but they grow really well for us too. They don't seem to have much of a shelf life, but that's fine by us, and we love eating them fresh as a snack throughout the day.

Have any of you ever tried these? Also, since they are call the "African" horned melon, I wonder if any of our steemian friends over in Africa have actually grown or eaten these. Either way, I can't wait until these are ready to harvest!