Mango Melon (Vine Peach)

These come back every year in true permaculture style. Now that I know how to use them, I'm happy to see them. They can be eaten raw - skin and all. They give a nice crunch to salads, a sweetness to stir fries and their high pectin content thickens preserves and jellies without diminishing the taste of the main fruit. I've even thickened soups with them. They were originally used in pies and baking. Because they are unassuming, they're excellent for stretching other fruit dishes like strawberries.

These seeds must have been admixed with other melon seeds that I planted 2 seasons ago. They never formed full size melons and were forgotten until this year. The small fruits wintered over, survived burning and propogated like crazy as volunteers this year. Fruits must have tilled under in rows that I planted in field corn and indian corn this season and now have vined to cover about 8000 sq feet of garden. I pulled as many vines as possible and harvested for disposal as many fruits as I could but inadvertently stepped on some fruits that will likely return with a vengeance this next growing season. The vines are hidden by grass and weeds that have grown up in this years watermelon patch. Not a desired variety. The are small, oval, odorless and tasteless. According some reviews, taste can be imparted by pickling but I believe that taste can be imparted to card board if pickled correctly.

This bush has taken over my east texas garden, it was alloted a simple 4ft by 4ft space on a mound, it is now currently 6ft by 6 foot growing over my cucumbers and has a TON of flowers but only 3 fruits(that I can find) I didn't expect this vine to grow this well, I purchased some trees and got 3 seeds as a gift so I figured I would sacrifice one of my cucumber mounds to try it out. I am disappointed to hear about the bland tasting fruit, so I will probably make preserves. It is a fun vine to gr (try to) tame but if you are looking for fresh fruit to grow and eat this is not the one. I wish the description on some of these websites were better.

I have grown these before and had lost my provider for them. These are easy to grow and Trellis. Grow at the edge of the garden and the wildlife rabbits etc will go for them and leave the rest of the garden alone. Picked while still young and green, if you skin them they have a cuke like taste to them, and make a good dill pickle substitute, or other pickle.They must be skinned. If allowed to ripen they make a great cooked preserve and pickle. The last i canned them we done 2 cases of skinned and deseeded bread and butter pickles out of them that was good. They are not very tasty raw when ripe,but can be cubed small into fruit salads or ambrosia to hide the blandness.Love them will be ordering them from ya'll. I had no problem growing them I fertilized with fish emulsion.

I received a packet of seeds as a free gift with my order. The seeds did not germinate well, so I ended up with only three plants to set out and none of them grew very well so I pulled them out. I thought I had pulled all three, but late in the season some kind of melon showed up among my winter squash. I waited to see what kind it was, but I just couldn't recognize it. It was one of the vine peach that I had somehow overlooked. Like the other reviewer, I was disappointed that it was rather tasteless fresh. However I found a recipe for cantaloup preserves and used the vine peach melons. Wow! They do make great "peach like" preserves with a vague melon taste in the background. I can see that they would make very tasty sweet or spicy pickles as well. I will be growing them again here in Idaho.