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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Nov 4, 2010 13:32:13 GMT -5
Just wondering if anyone here currently grows any perennial melons or squash? I read a while back that there are some perennial watermelon that grow in africa, but they are supposedly small and bitter. Perhaps a good gardener could breed it into a better variety though. I discovered this today, and wondered if anyone has grown it, or plans to grow it. It's called a buffalo gourd. www.seedsource.com/catalog/detail.asp?product_id=3161
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 4, 2010 13:53:51 GMT -5
We have a wild perennial watermelon close-relative (same sub-tribe: Benincasinae) that survives the winter here in zone 5 (and colder). It also has a tuberous root. The taste is exceedingly nasty. It's species is "Bryonia Alba". It's fruits, flowers, growth habit, and seeds look like miniature watermelon. I collected a bunch of seed from B. alba thinking that it would be fun to breed a perennial watermelon, but I haven't done the project yet. The chromosome count of B. alba which is 2n=20 does not match the chromosome count of watermelon which is 2n=22. Once I found out about the different chromosome numbers I put it on the back burner. A person might try the cross anyway just to see what happens. Or perhaps making a pseudo-tetraploid might be the way to go. So if I was going to attempt a cross. Do you think I should put watermelon pollen on bryonia flowers? And then plant the bryonia seed. Any plant that produced fruit bigger than a small pea would be easy to see the next year. Update May 2011: alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=bp&thread=5363&page=1
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Post by wildseed57 on Nov 4, 2010 16:17:31 GMT -5
I've grown buffalo gourd before I think that they may be the same as Japanese nest egg gourd which grows wild here also, but I'm not sure if they are the same or not. the small egg shaped gourds are loaded with sap pins I can honestly say you don't want to try and taste it. I grew a African watermelon a while back this type had two different types of seeds one type looked like regular watermelon seeds while the other were red seeds like a citron has this African watermelon was fairly large and hard as a rock, the flesh was slightly sweet and very dense like a citron watermelon also. I don't have any of the seeds as I finally got rid of them after three years. I don't think the vines weren't perennial as they didn't come up in the beds again mainly because of the cold weather we have in Missouri. George W.
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Post by atash on Nov 4, 2010 23:00:47 GMT -5
Thanks to Hristo I have Cucurbita ficifolia which is perennial. I have not tried tasting the fruit yet but I've already heard that they are bland and fibrous. Used in South America for confection: the flesh is cut into cubes, boiled in syrup, and cooled. Also the seeds are eaten.
My family says they are beautiful fruits. Green with off-white pattern on the shell. Ellipsoidal in shape. They are famous for keeping extremely well. Reputedly there are daylength-sensitive and day-neutral forms, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true, because some people have grown them easily and some people can't get them to flower before autumn, when it is too late for them to ripen.
There is no easy way to cross them to any of the tastier squashes. I think you can cross them to moschata, do embryo rescue, and get a surprisingly vigorous but sterile offspring. Then they've tried other stuff but it sort of dead-ends.
Buffalo Gourds don't cross with anything useful either, except with their equally unpleasantly bitter close relations.
Supposedly the more palatable squashes were bred from wild species that also are bitter. So maybe with enough patience and selection from huge numbers of fruit and a lot of selection over many generations, Buffalo Gourds and/or other hardy perennial squashes could be made palatable.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 5, 2010 0:18:40 GMT -5
Aaaaaaagk! Domesticate a new species? Wasn't all that work finished by the ancient ones? What business do we have messing with things like domestication? Ha! What a thrill to think about it. I wouldn't have to create a watermelon sized fruit... It would be really clever if I got rid of the bitterness and found a bit of sweetness. Then if the size could be increased from black bean size to garbanzo bean size it would be so cool. I shudder at the thought of tasting enough fruits to find one that is less bitter than the others. I suppose a chromatographic or spectroscopic method could be developed. Or perhaps a dilution step would be part of the test. Or observing which plants are preferred by birds or caterpillars. Maybe it could be as easy as taking a brix reading to select for more sugar. And wouldn't you know it, my local population of Bryonia Alba has been tested for genetic diversity and been shown to be the least diverse of any of the known usa populations. The populations in Washington, Northern Idaho, and Montana have much higher diversity than the Utah strain, but all of them are still not very diverse as far as plants go. The authors of the study speculate that there were 2 or 3 introductions of B. Alba to the usa that naturalized. www.jstor.org/pss/2446069Here's what it looks like: www.dragongoose.com/images/WeedBryony.jpg
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Post by canadamike on Nov 19, 2010 23:20:36 GMT -5
One thing I can tell you is that cucurbita ficifolia stays edible as a summer squash ( immature) for quite a while and even to the point of full growth ( sizewise). It is not that tasty but neither is zucchini to be frank.. My european friends tell me the mature ones can be eaten like spaghetti squash, I will soon see. I guess it will cost me a lot of garlic and maybe curry ;D
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Post by ottawagardener on Nov 20, 2010 15:21:50 GMT -5
I wonder if there is a method to reduce/remove the bitter components and make some sort of mush. That way at least the journey would be more harvestable. Maybe not. Just thinking of some other roots/nuts where different leaching processes were used.
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Post by raymondo on Nov 20, 2010 15:29:31 GMT -5
Some of the Australian native cucurbits are perennial, or at least have an underground rhizome from which they can regrow. Unfortunately, most of them produce small, bitter fruit.
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Post by pierre on Nov 21, 2010 3:50:53 GMT -5
We have a wild red fruited cherry tomato size perennial Bryonia here southern France. Said to be very toxic. I did not try.
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Post by galina on Nov 21, 2010 7:53:00 GMT -5
Thanks to Hristo I have Cucurbita ficifolia which is perennial. I have not tried tasting the fruit yet but I've already heard that they are bland and fibrous. Used in South America for confection: the flesh is cut into cubes, boiled in syrup, and cooled. Also the seeds are eaten. There is the Spanish Angel Hair Jam and what it is traditionally used for: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabell_d'%C3%A0ngel I make and preserve pickles out of C Ficifolia. The flesh is cut into cubes and processed similarly to Bred and Butter pickle (with less sugar - personal taste). The 'mouth-feel' is quite something, as the cubes melt into individual juicy threads when bitten into. I have never saved the plants over winter, as they are not frost hardy although they are perennial in warmer climates. but the Fig Leaf Pumpkin fruits themselves keep 2-3 years, the longest keeping squash I know of.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Dec 5, 2010 14:44:56 GMT -5
This will teach me to pay attention to squash threads!
I've been searching for the recipie for cabell d angel for years! (Galina, the link doesn't work for me?) My father always said that it was made from pumpkins. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how and I made several attempts to figure it out, completely without success.
Anyhow, I would love to get a few seed to try out. A dozen at the most as squashes have enemies here that we have not yet brought under control.
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Post by Hristo on Dec 5, 2010 16:49:14 GMT -5
Checked the recipe. Reminds me what the old people say: "You can make tasty jam even of watermelon rinds, if you add... enough sugar" Of all the squashes I have grown this one was by far the worst tasting, but if you add all this sugar and flavourings I'm sure it will be more palatable. If you are interested I will check if I have any good seeds left (most were hollow). Btw. here is the full link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabell_d'%C3%A0ngel
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Post by mnjrutherford on Dec 5, 2010 22:00:18 GMT -5
Checked the recipe. Reminds me what the old people say: "You can make tasty jam even of watermelon rinds, if you add... enough sugar" When I was very small, my grandmother taught me how to make watermelon jam. ;D It is a favorite of mine and your mention takes me back in time to that fragrant kitchen and vibrant woman who was the first to put my feet on the path of gardening and cooking. My father is from Mallorca Spain. He also taught me a great deal about cooking. When I was small, he took me several times to Spain. I still remember the flavors of many of the foods I ate there and I have tried all my life to duplicate some of those things. Pastries made with cabell d angel is one of those things. The link has a series of 3 photos in a column on the right side of the page, the middle photo is of ensaimada. Very difficult, but I make that bread. It would be a great thing for me to make cabell d angel to go into it. I believe the other parts of the plant are edible as well? Thank you Hristo, you have brought me many pleasant memories this evening.
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Post by atash on Dec 7, 2010 14:32:56 GMT -5
>>I believe the other parts of the plant are edible as well?
You can eat the greens just like people do in some parts of the world. It compromises fruit production but if you need greens not fruit there you go.
The most valuable part are the seeds, problem being that they have hulls to get past.
Hristo, I have not opened my C. ficifolia fruit but when I do I imagine that I probably have ripe seed. So I could send some back some day if you need a fresh supply of seed. It is obviously day-neutral unlike many in cultivation, otherwise it would not have fruited this far north.
No idea if the original plant survived a severe freeze we had a while ago. It was short in duration but the roots were not well-protected. After the fact I took steps to protect the roots if it did survive. If I lost it I could just start over with fresh seed assuming that it produced some, which probably it did. I have 1 big fruit and 1 small one. I let them ripen as long as possible.
The plant itself was the most vigorous in my yard. It also avoided senescence the longest.
MNJRutherford, fascinating to find that out about you.
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Post by atash on Dec 7, 2010 14:39:46 GMT -5
Maybe I should just open up my fruit late winter, send around some fresh seed, try making something out of the flesh just to see if I can do it (or maybe my older daughter can), and then I can start some seeds in the spring and plant them out at the farm in the summer. Then there will be plenty to go around.
I can decide at the time I open the fruit if I can find a viable use for it or not.
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