Cucamelons

[mike]

Have any of you tried growing Cucamelons, also known as Mexican Sour Gherkins on the AG yet? I have one of my weird ideas for growing these next to my tote growing greens.

[Shawn]

Mike, someone here has posted about them. Click here for the Search page on them.

[hakaku]

I tried growing Cucamelons three different times:

• In the AeroGarden: It grew extremely well and very prolifically. Overtime, however, it was tedious to manage since it kept branching off everywhere and I didn't have a trellis to make it tidy, so it ended up looking like a pile of spaghetti. I also couldn't transplant it outdoors at the time since it was winter. All that said, the biggest problem was actually pollination: the male and female flowers are simply too small and too brittle, that it makes it very difficult to hand-pollinate them (I was not successful at all).
  
• In a self-watering pot filled with hydroton: Same thing as above.
  
• Outdoors (sewn directly): I only tried one plant outdoors last summer and it didn't grow very well or produce anything. Maybe I was too late in the season starting it or maybe I should've planted a few more plants for better chances of success.
  

[hakaku]

I found some of my photos

Female flower:

Spaghetti mess:

[mike]

Thanks hakaku,

Do you have a pic of a male flower as well. How do you transfer the pollen from one to the other?

[hakaku]

I couldn't find a photo of my own, but you can see the difference here:

The male flowers look very similar to the female ones, just without the "melon" part and with the petals sticking forward more.

In my case the male flowers also showed up and bloomed much later than the female flowers -- almost like a month later. So just be aware that there's a delay before they appear.

As for hand pollinating, from what I had read online, people suggested two different methods for hand pollination: use a q-tip to pollinate or take a male flower and rub it on a female flower. If you do the flower method, just make sure the male flowers are open before starting the process.

[mike]

Thank you.

[mike]

Is that one plant on the Farm?

[hakaku]

It's two plants but I couldn't tell one from the other towards the end