I Harvested a Really Odd Crop Today

A friend of mine at work gave me three or four seeds of a weird crop for the garden that I had never planted before.  She had ordered the seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - one of the main seed companies where I purchase my seeds.  This weird thing is called Cucumis metuliferus, or kiwano or horned melon, or African Horn Cucumber or Jelly Melon.  This strange crop goes by many different names.  Some even call it the "Blowfish fruit" and as you look at the pictures below, I think you'll appreciate why.

I planted it back in early spring when I planted my cucumbers.  It grew and grew and grew and grew. The cucumbers produced like crazy and then died eventually, but the Kiwano kept on growing, finally flowering and producing bizarre looking green, fat, cucumber-ish fruits but with many pointed spines on its outer skin.

Blowfish Fruit

This melon is indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa and therefore does fine on little water and lots of heat.  It vines all over the place, so if you plant it, you'd best have lots of room for it to run.  You must also learn patience when growing the 'blowfish fruit' as it seems like it is never going to make melons, but it does eventually and here's what one looks like.

It fits nicely in the palm of your hand and is about the size of a hand grenade, not that I make it a practice of holding hand grenades in my hand.  The horns on the Horn Melon are sharp.  This thing would do some damage if someone were to hurl it at you.  It also looks like something that would grow on an alien planet.  But this alien fruit is not ripe yet.  A ripened kiwano will turn an orange-yellow color. Supposedly, the more orange the color of the fruit, the sweeter it will be.  Let's "throw the blowfish back" and let it grow for a while.  (Fast forward a few weeks...)

Okay, patience isn't one of my strong suits.  After a few weeks only one kiwano began to turn orange-yellow.  I am a curious person, so I picked it, probably a bit prematurely, but I just had to try this crazy thing!

I brought it inside and cut it in half with a knife.  Beautiful lime green jello looking stuff along with seeds that resemble those of cucumbers filled the interior of the kiwano.  They say the flavor is enhanced when the jelly melon is chilled, so I put it in the fridge for a while.  I read that this is rich in Vitamin C and is a good source of Iron and Potassium.  Some people scoop out the contents and use the hollowed out, dry shell of the kiwano half as an interesting looking bowl or serving dish.  Some people use it as decoration or a conversation starter.

According to various sources I went to in order to learn about the Kiwano, it is supposed to taste like a cross between a banana, cucumber and lemon.  That ought to give my taste buds a workout.  Let's give this a try.  You simply scoop out a spoonful and eat.  Looking at the spoon's contents, you can see why it is also called a jelly melon. Okay, I'm gonna try this thing...

Review: It is cool, tropical and refreshing.  Not great, not an overly intense flavor, but not bad either. I'm going to leave the other African Horned Melons to ripen until they are solid orange-yellow.  I want to see if the really ripe ones are that much sweeter.  I ate the seeds and that probably wasn't a good idea.  Unlike cucumbers, the seeds were very noticeable since the other portion of the kiwano's interior is jelly.  I understand that you can press the kiwano jelly through a sieve to separate the seeds and then make ice cream or sorbet with the jelly as flavoring.

Speaking of seeds, I'm going to save some of these, if anyone is interested.  If the other ones ripen and are sweeter, I'll plant a few again this spring.  One note of warning is that these are grown in New Zealand and they were soon classified as an invasive species in that country.  Minus the "horns" the kiwano kind of looks like something that grows around here we call a 'stink melon', but I've never tried to eat a stink melon.