Procrastination Garden Adventures

Earlier this spring, I had some seeds left over after starting some plants in my greenhouse. I don’t remember what seeds they were, but I grabbed some and scattered them on the ground next to me greenhouse as an experiment into what would grow without care.

When doing experiments, it’s usually a good idea to document what you did and track the progress. I didn’t do any of that.

In the meantime, I parked a lowboy trailer next to that spot and started loading it with scrap metal. Then my greenhouse blew down in a storm, as some of you may recall.

Of course, I completely forgot about the experiment and which seeds I scattered. The trailer is now loaded with scrap, and my wife Janessa has been nagging me about hauling it off. Also, of course, one of the trailer tires has gone flat. I only have time to take the trailer to the scrap yard on Saturday. But the flat tire will probably take me all Saturday morning to fix. So this is going to be a two-week project.

Thankfully, that little experiment has given me an opportunity to procrastinate.

When I walked over to the trailer the other day, I noticed the whole side of it covered in Armenian cucumber vines. I found several cucumbers growing in between sheets of tin and chicken wire.

I told Janessa I couldn’t move the trailer yet, because I’m using it as a cucumber trellis. She was not amused. But she does like those Armenian cucumbers.

A few weeks ago, a reader dropped off some ice box pickles she made with Armenian cucumbers. They were excellent, maybe even better than regular cucumber pickles.

These plants are incredibly hardy. The ones growing on my trailer are competing with weeds. I have never watered them (although we have received a lot of rain this year). They seem impervious to insect damage. Plus, they continue to set fruit even during the hottest part of the year.

A few weeks ago I wrote about bitter melons and my struggles to find a palatable way to eat this most nutritious fruit. I’m still struggling to find a way to eat the bitter flesh. But recently, I allowed a few to ripen until the skin turned orange. At that point, the white pith inside the melons turns into a soft red pulp, called “arils” that surround each seed inside. This seed covering is quite sweet and tasty. I would probably need to harvest hundreds of melons to get enough of this pulp to make a pie or something, but they make a nice snack. Don’t eat the seeds, though. They’re toxic.

I’ve read that this red pulp contains many of the benefits of eating bitter melon flesh. I bought the seeds from Baker Creek Seed Co., and according to them, bitter melon contains high levels of iron, twice the beta-carotene of broccoli, twice the calcium of spinach, and twice the potassium of banana.

This week I harvested my first Kajari melon. I bought the seeds from Baker Creek last year and planted them in the spring. The vines grew like crazy but produced few fruit at first. Hot temperatures over the past month seems to have benefited these melons. They’re finally setting fruit. When ripe, the skin turns a brilliant copper color with green stripes. The flesh inside taste sweet with a slight cantaloupe flavor, but not quite as musky. The flesh is a creamy yellow-green color. The fruits are smaller than a cantaloupe, almost single-serving size.

These melons supposedly originate in the Punjab region of India near Pakistan. Although the area experiences colder winter, that area of the world shares the same latitude and hot summers as Texas. I think these fruits are a good alternative for gardeners who want to try a different melon.