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Planting
Days to maturity
Seasonal yields
Sow indoors · Direct sow · Transplant outdoors
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Plant · P-483
Kiwano
Cucumis metuliferus
Kiwano is a frost-tender annual climbing melon from semi-arid Africa, grown for the spiny orange fruit and its green, jelly-like pulp, sold as kiwano or African horned melon. It's a true heat crop - seed barely germinates below 8 C, and sowing date decides everything: an early planting can top 46 tonnes per hectare while one two months later sets no fruit at all before the season ends. The fruit keeps unusually well at room temperature, staying firm for three months, but chills and rots within weeks in a cold store, and beyond eating it fresh the plant is also grown as a disease-resistant rootstock for grafting cucumber.
Record at a glance
Growing profile
- Sun
- Full Sun
- USDA zone
- USDA 9–11
- Soil
- Sand · Loam · Clay
- Moisture
- Well-Drained · Moist
Vertical layer
Vine- Soil pH
- 6–7.5
- Plant type
- Annual
- Mature height
- 4.9 ft
- Mature spread
- 4–20 in
- Plant spacing
- 18–24 in
- Root type
- Not yet recorded
- Spread pattern
- None
Keep exploring
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The deeper layer
Plan what comes next.
- Primary
- Locked ecological function
- Secondary
- Locked ecological function
- Byproduct
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Behind the record
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