A mammoth undertaking

Cuthbert the Cucumelon

A few months ago, I read in the Sunday papers about a “new” plant that was being grown commercially in the UK for the first time, and would shortly be available from Waitrose. It sounded interesting  – a member of the cucumber/courgette family, with small sour fruit the size of a grape that look a bit like a watermelon. Hence the name, “Cucumelon”. So I kept my eyes peeled, and sure enough a few weeks later the Malvern Waitrose did indeed have a small stock of the plants in their garden section. At only £4 for a healthy-looking specimen about 20cm high, I thought it was worth trying. It looked very vine-like and was clearly a climber, so I put it in the porch with a small wigwam of bamboo sticks to give it some support.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t properly read the instructions. The words “pinch out the main growing shoot once it reaches 2.5m” should have given me cause to consider. It’s just as well I only repotted it into a medium-sized pot (rather than the large one recommended) as Cuthbert the Cucumelon clearly has designs on world domination! I’ve had to make a network of supports out of twine, strung across my porch, and Cuthbert is going for it. He’s more like a “Mile-a-Minute vine” in that you can practically see him growing! I check on him in the morning on my way to work, and by the time I come home he’s generally grown another couple of inches and sprouted another pair of leaves. There’s lots of tiny fruit on him, that look like mini-courgettes about a centimetre long with a small yellow flower on the end, but they’ve not yet ripened. I don’t really mind if I don’t get any edible fruit out of him – they’re apparently somewhat of an acquired taste to put it mildly – as it’s just been so much fun watching him grow and trying to curb his expansionist tendencies! I’ve certainly got far more than £4-worth of entertainment from him.