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What is this?
millwall_tina
Posts: 12
Any ideas what this is? It's fluffy to the touch, come up from lemon cucumber seeds bought through amazon ?? ????
Any suggestionS? Many thanks Tina
0
Posts
My best guess is that the parent plant was cross-pollinated with a wild cucumber which have hairy/spiny fruit . It may well taste very bitter.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Thank you for your reply, I have 2 of these strange plants coming up taken out of same packet the only 2 to grow, I wouldn't attempt to eat it, too strange looking for me, and being new to veg gardening had no idea what it was ha!
Thanks again
I think it's Hedgehog gourd (Cucumis dipsaceus), a wild form as Dove says and native to the Middle East. They turn yellow when ripe ((probably where the 'lemon' description comes in) and are reported as bitter but less so when still green. See this Australian seed supllier:
https://fairdinkumseeds.com/products-page/ethnobotanical-or-medicinal-plants/chuzzle-cucumber-cucumis-dipsaceus-seeds/
Thank you for that. Only had few seeds in packet guess they must of got mixed during packaging! Certainly not what i was expecting!! Interesting tho and has kept me intrigued ha!
will just let it carry on see what happens, how many fruits etc.,
thankyou!
It can be a bit dodgy to buy seeds from Amazon or Ebay etc. You never really know what you are getting and we've had posts from folk who have been sent packets of weed seeds! I'm sure many suppliers are genuine, but some certainly are not!
Will bear that in mind, was a one off .
very helpful
thankyou