Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Lawrence on July 15, 2012, 11:53
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I dont have a lot to go on, but my father in law asked me if I knew what his neighbour is growing?
I don't have a picture yet, but it is a vine that has grown to over 6ft high and over the trellis. It has yellow courgette like flowers with a small round fruit and big leaves "like rhubarb" he says?
The neighbours are possibly southern Indians and they are eating the leaves and the flowers but not the fruits. (my guess is that comes later, but ??)
So any ideas? I will be seeing FIL tonight and I thought I would ask you guys.
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Some sort of squash? They will grow up if given support. :unsure:
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Almost certainly a squash, melon or cucurbit. The fruit are probably still small because it is only mid January, and this has not been a good enough year for squash to go crazy. Squash flowers are very edible and the leaves can be depending on the type. For example, pumpkin leaves (which are big) are commonly eaten by Africans, I believe.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2599/2
If the leaves are even bigger than pumpkin, it might be a winter melon - benincasa hispida, which happily grows in good soil in an average summer in the South East ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_melon. I've grown them, and although I couldn't get the full size melon which is up to 2 feet long, I got 10 inch dameter ones. And of course, you can eat the fruits before they mature, so nothing needs to go to waste.
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Thanks guys, pretty much what I thought to be honest.
Later in the year I might get a better idea when I see the fruits fully grown, providing they do of course, might be an Indian variety from home that can't ripen here.
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If it is a native from their home i just hope they were licensed to bring it here. Very large fines can be handed out because foreign flora and fauna can devistate our natural habitat.
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If it is a native from their home i just hope they were licensed to bring it here. Very large fines can be handed out because foreign flora and fauna can devistate our natural habitat.
I don't know if they did or not but I never knew that!
Every time I go on holiday I bring seeds back, and then try to grow them.
And most of the seeds I buy come from abroad as well.
I had better look into it, I certainly don't want to get fined.