African horned cucumber (Cucumis metuliferus)
[Jaimie Sweetman is part of the Edible Forest located on the Yarra Valley Estate in Dixons Creek. There are regular tours of the Edible Forest – read more and book your place on a future tour.]
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The African horned cucumber is, as the name suggests, a type of cucumber. The fruit typically doesn’t mature until late May, which is months after the standard cucumbers have died off. They turn from green to yellow-orange when ripe. The fruit’s taste has been compared to a combination of banana, cucumber, passionfruit and zucchini. Like standard cucumbers, the plants grow on the ground as a vine. But they look especially good if they are grown up a trellis. In the wild, the spikes (and the little thorns at the ends of the spikes) help to protect the cucumber from grazing animals, thus allowing the seed to mature and ripen and continuing their species. |
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It is a traditional food plant in Africa. where, for example, it is one of the few sources of water during the dry season in the Kalahari Desert.