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Strange cucumber like plant

6 years ago

Hello! I live in salt lake county and got a few random plants this year and planted them outside in my garden. They were unlabeled, so it was a surprise as to what they were. One of them turned out to be miniature pumpkins, but the other one is confusing me. At first i believed they were pickling cucs, but i don't think that's right. It smells very strongly of cucumber, but the flavor isn't right. They grow very wide and stout. Anybody know what this could be? All of them are growing this same way.

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Comments (5)

susanzone5 (NY)
6 years ago
Looks like a zucchini but you would get a better response if you post this in the "Name that Plant" forum. Post another picture of the whole plant showing its leaves and growth habit. What does it taste like?
Aubree Adamson
Original Author
6 years ago
It tastes like a more bitter, faint version of a normal slicing cucumber. I also don't think its zucchini, as the zucchini plants I have seen are generally more upright. But I definitely won't rule it out!
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a cucumber plant grows long and is a vine, it has been my experience that a cucumber leave never gets as large as a zucchini leave a zucchini plant stays somewhat compact (only in comparison the the cuke of course), the zucchinis all grow in towards the "trunk" of the plant, where as a cuke produces fruit all throughout the vine,
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Andie: Not sure where you are in SoCal, but I'm in San Diego. So, my few years gardening experience might help. And Yes --gardening is addictive. Yo be honest with you, if your area gets below freezing(AT ALL), the peppers, tomatoes and cukes just aren't going to survive. Even if they do, they won't THRIVE. Those are WARM weather crops. And they need lots of sun -- something that even the mild winters here just can't supply. Don't get me wrong. If you start those veggies between March and June, you can get nice harvest all the way up until November and December. But STARTING them this late won't yield much of anything. I like to start my peppers and tomatoes in January indoors, under a shoplight with "daylight" flourescent bulbs. Cukes can be started in Feb. or March. Or I just wait until the nurseries bring in transplants around late March. There's actually more veggies that you can grow here in the fall and winter here - lettuces, spinach, root veggies, anything in the brassica family(broccoli,cauliflower,Kale,cabbage, etc.),snow peas, etc. Do a search in google for: vegetable planting guide along with the name of your county. You'll get a general idea on WHAT to grow and WHEN to grow them. You can still get some COOL weather crops in the ground, but you're probably best off finding transplants at Home Depot or (even better) your local nursery. All I saw at MY Home Depot was lettuce. I DID find some broccoli and cauliflower at my Walmart though. Good Luck. Kevin
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Sure it wasn't a giant kiwi? Sort of sounds like someone crossed a kiwi with a melon. Seriously, I hope someone can identify it. It sounds very interesting.
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bburr25
6 years ago
I remember once that, in our old garden, one year I decided to grow a couple seeds from a pumpkin we had harvested from it. After that following year’s harvest started coming on, I noticed that, with most of the pumpkin plants, they appeared to be producing normally, but the few I had grown from those home-grown seeds were producing really strange-looking fruit (I can’t really describe it now). We realized that we must have had some “squashkins” on our hands, which would have resulted from the previous year’s squash and pumpkins cross-pollinating and producing those weird crosses.

I wonder if those plants you received, while not necessarily “squahkins”, might be some kind of cross between two different plants, or at least two varieties of the same plant?
Mokinu
6 years ago
It could be a pickling melon. Not sure, though. It doesn't look like a squash to me.
Mokinu
6 years ago
Also, it might be a wax melon of some kind.

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