Cucamelons Form Tubers!

One of the best parts of being a gardener is learning new things! As you might recall, I grew cucamelons for the first time this year and just learned something amazing.

Now, in case you haven’t heard of cucamelons, they are members of the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae) and their fruits look like tiny watermelons. They have a crunchy texture and a lemony taste. They’re also known as Mexican Sour Gherkins and mouse melons.

A friend and colleague of mine, Niki Jabbour, recently posted on Instagram how cucamelon plants form tubers. She digs them up, puts them into a container of lightly-moistened potting soil, stores them in her basement for the winter, and then plants the tubers the next year so the plants get off to a better start. Wow!

So I dashed out to the garden (since our cucamelons have already been frosted), dug in the ground and found these 2 tubers in the above photo. How cool is that? I immediately put them into a pot and am trying Niki’s method.

Since my plants got off to a terrible start, thanks to our local covey of quail, this sounds very promising.

By the way, just in case you’ve never seen what  cucamelons looks like, the photo to the right shows one.

I’ll keep you posted…