Mexican Sour Gherkin

Day 282: There are several reasons for my daily posts. The first, of course, is to educate. Another is to make science less terrifying to those who flunked it in junior high school, and yet another is to encourage my readers to take up new handcrafts. These considerations fall within the definition of "outreach," i.e., in some way connecting my readers to a broader world. However, many of my images and descriptions also serve as a phenological journal, allowing me to look back to see when a particular plant emerged or was in bloom. Thus it is that today I am recording the development of several minute yellow flowers and the promise of a nice crop of Mexican Sour Gherkins which, at maturity, will look like miniature watermelons, pale green with dark green stripes. Their diameter will not exceed one inch. Almost seedless and slightly tart (hence the name), they are in fact a cucumber and can be eaten straight off the vine. The plants prefer to climb, so I have been training the tendrils on coarse garden string and a tomato cage, and the tips of some of the stems have already gone over the top. It is drought-tolerant once established and, growers are cautioned, "bears heavily all season." I'm looking forward to bite-sized cukes among the other unusual vegs and fruits in my garden.

Garden Report

Day 278: My gardening is now under supervision. While I was instructing the Mexican Sour Gherkins in proper climbing techniques and wondering how I was ever going to manage to eat all the Akebia fruits from my hand-pollination successes, he landed on the chicken-wire fence to oversee my work. We engaged in eye contact and a one-sided conversation for several minutes, and then he flew down to the ground inside the Berry Pen. He's been on the back porch several times this morning and cleaned up all the "lazy seeds" (shelled sunflower seeds) I laid out for his breakfast. He's beginning to look less tatty as he sheds the last of his baby feathers and his colour starts to come in, but those stubby tailfeathers make me laugh every time I see him. Poor kid's got no rudder! But he flies straight and true, and if anything can be said for his foraging skills, he knows exactly where the food comes from: me.