Plant · P-345

Cucamelon

Melothria scabra

Cucamelon vines produce grape-sized fruit that taste like cucumber with a citrus tang, eaten raw or pickled straight off the plant. It is a fast, heavy-fruiting vine best grown on a trellis rather than left to sprawl, and it flowers yellow through the hottest part of summer, when there is little else blooming for pollinators. A wild relative in the same genus survives as a perennial, so there is a real chance the below-ground tuber can survive a mild winter and resprout - worth mulching over and finding out.