Everything and nothing: Invasion of the curcubitaceae

Doesn't it sound like the title of a bad horror movie?
Remember the “Invasion of the body snatchers” where human clones came out of a cucumber like gooey cocoon.

Yes, I am that old!

Part of the herb garden

Ok, you must be wondering where I'm coming from.

Last spring, like every spring for the last three years, my boyfriend and I planted our garden. As always we planted the favorites and the no brainer to take care of tomatoes, carrots lettuce and cucumbers. And for the first time we planted water melons and cantaloupes. They joined our growing collection of fine herbs (parsley, 2 kinds of thyme, oregano, tarragon, 2 kinds of mint, 3 types of basil, rosemary, savory, hyssop and sage).

Giant invading cucumber plants

Then started the anxiety, the waiting and checking; will it grow or will it die? I slaved in the hot sun watering and fertilizing, removing weeds until our crop grew enough so that I could not see them anymore (ok my boyfriend helped). And it grew, for the most part anyway, and then it continued growing and growing and growing some more. And that’s where I'm coming from; we are invaded by cucumbers and melons (all members if the curcubitaceae family). They’re everywhere, in the flower beds, around tomato plants, in the fine herbs garden and, even sneaking through the fence in the neighbor’s yard. A good thing there’s a cedar hedge so they wind around the trees and he won’t be snatched by giant cucumbers and….giant they are. There is so many leaves that they remain invisible until it’s too late and then they jump in our face. However, there is one thing I can’t hold against them: they are good, sweet and crunchy with next to no seeds and they make great creamy soup. You can try our recipe below, courtesy of Chris, my boyfriend.

Melons and Cantaloupes

As for the melon, well they are growing leaves and, some melons. Let’s say that for the amount of foliage there is little fruit. They are a great cat hiding place when they don’t want to come in and I’m looking for them. We will still get to harvest a few. There is one cantaloupe almost ready to pick and 3 or 4 others not too far behind. We are not that lucky with the water melons, so far there are three, one that is dying, another one that looks sick and a third one that maybe our winner. Seems like my waiting anxiety is not over yet. If you are interested here is a link to a cool story about "The Return of the Montreal Melon" a kind of melon that was grown in NDG until World War II than disappeared. It made a come back in the Cantaloup garden which promotes community and urban gardening as well as organic heritage seeds and plants. They are working with the organisation Action Communiterre.