Mexican Sour Gherkin
One of the new vegetable varieties we're
trying out this year is the Mexican Sour Gherkin (Melothria scabria). It's
billed as a tiny cucumber that is resistant to the wilts that tend to
kill normal cucumbers on our farm, and I can attest to the species
being much less disease-ridden.
On the other hand, I don't think they really taste like cucumbers ---
the gherkins are more sour and lack that cucumber tang. Another
disadvantage is that Mexican Sour Gherkins get off to a slow
start...but maybe that's an advantage since in our garden they started
bearing at about the same time our cucumbers gave up the ghost.
Mexican Sour Gherkins are certainly cute, and they are tasty even if they don't really
taste like cucumbers. It's also pretty cool to be growing a
vegetable variety which seems to have been cultivated unchanged since
before Europeans showed up in North America. While they're not a
new superhero of the garden, I think we'll keep growing gherkins.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Mexican Sour Gherkin...I read your posts and find my little "watermelon" looking pickles to have a real nice cucumber flavor, with just a hint of the sour burst. Maybe it depends on the soil and nutrients where they grow?
The vines are the most beautiful, dainty dark green ivy-like vines in the garden. I will grow these again for sure.
I am going to pick the last of the harvest, which came on just as my other pickles were slowing down. Longer grow time, at least in cooler WA State. I thought I might try pickling them and see what happens...I can't wait to see how cute they look in the jar.