Look what I grew!

This came up in my compost heap this year. I always like to see what comes up from the compost heap. My problem is, I don't know what this is. Last year I had a rose plant in a pot and a vine came up in it. It looked like a squash vine except that the leaves were variegated. I let it grow all season and it produced what looked like a small dark green pumpkin. I also had tons of Baghdad Long melons which grew great, but I didn't like them. This leads to my tentative ID on this thing. It's growing on a variegated squash/pumpkin/melon vine. I cut this one off today to find it's not ripe yet, but I tasted it raw and found it in this stage to be sweeter than a Baghdad Long melon. I think it may be a cross of whatever was on the variegated vine with the Baghdad Long melon. Am I correct, or is this something entirely different?

Another picture

It certainly looks like something from the squash family.

It might be a cross between a cucumber and a squash. Did you taste it? What does the plant look like?

I tasted it. It is sweeter than a cucumber. The vine looks like any large squash or melon vine but it is variegated with white around the veins of the leaves. It has big flowers like a squash.


This message was edited Jun 17, 2010 2:35 PM

Can't really tell from the photo. But it could be a crossed Asian melon. I am not really familiar with the Baghdad Long, but Baker Creek offers it with Asian melons. Asian melons are usually crisp with not a whole lot of flavor. They will cross with most other C. melo types including Armenian cucumbers. Squash of course do not cross with melons nor will a cucumber (Cucumis sativus)

OK, so my first guess would be wrong because a melon and a squash cannot cross. I'm pretty convinced that it is Baghdad Long crossed with another melon. I don't believe I grew any cucumbers last year. There were a few other melons, so that is probably what it is. Baghdad Long melons make me think of a sweet cucumber. They don't have much flavor, but they sure like growing in Arkansas!

It might not have even been anything you grew. Some animal could have been munching at the neighbors, stopped off on the way home for a little snack from your compost pile, and pooped out some seeds while they were there.

Oh well... You ate something you didn't know what it was and you're still alive... It's all good... 8>)

:=D

it reminds me of the movie "invasion of ther body snatchers" anyone here old enough to remember that movie (the original) that is.

I remember the first one existed, and I remember when the second one was released in the 70's. Weren't Leonard Nimoy and Jeff Goldblum in that?

Oh, I know exactly what that is!

It is a melonumber compostis.

Kay :)

I'm afraind I have to make a clarification on that... Ghost Melonumber Compostis fer shur!

Now we know!

chicochi3 - the remake was with donald southerland and i don't know who else.

Yes, I just looked it up-Donald Southerland, Leonard Nimoy, and Jeff Goldblum were all in it!

Not nearly as good as the original.

As a kid, I had re-occurring nightmares about that movie.
My neighbors grow an Italian heirloom plant that looks similar, maybe smaller fruit?
They use the young ones as cucumbers and the mature ones as melons.