My watermelon is getting bigger. Soon it is ready to harvest at last! But …

Eh?😲, Really? In London?

It looks just like a watermelon, doesn’t it? But its size is actually much much smaller.

This is the reality.

When it becomes big enough to harvest, the size becomes about the tip of my forefinger. So, what is it then?

This is a fruit/vegetable called Cucamelon. It is a quite new vegetable which was introduced to the UK about 3 years ago. From the name you can probably guess what it is like. It is a made up name from Cucumber and Melon and it is basically a tiny cucumber with a pattern similar to watermelon. I grew this plant successfully three years ago and I still had some seeds left so I sewed them at the beginning of this summer.

It took a while until it started flowering,  and then there was trouble. It became rainy and there was no hoverfly around here this early summer! Because it gets so tiny flowers it needs small pollinators.

I worried if it would get fruit, but some insects started visiting and voila! I got some Cucamelon.

Once it started getting sunny, small size bumblebees also came for its nectar.

Now I can see several tiny cucamelons hanging down…

Cucamlon tastes like slightly lemony cucumber. If you cut the fruit you can see it is really a little cucumber inside. It is so small that you don’t need to cut and just scatter them into your salad bowl.

What I was really amazed about this plant is this springy tendril. How can this tiny plant has such an efficient engineering ability.

It is quite late in the season but I just started harvesting these crops now. I am glad that I can enjoy a late summer salad with them.