Harvest Time - And a Mystery
Peeper's been trying to pick things from the garden for a while now, and she did get two both of my peppers, well before they had a chance to ripen and become red or yellow (I do see another flower or two, though, so maybe we'll get more - those plants are not doing well at all, though.) and a couple of green tomatoes, but last night, I actually picked a couple of tomatoes myself and helped her pick the giant cucumber that we've been watching for a week or so.
There in lies the rub.
Back when I started the garden, I thought I'd bought two cucumber and one watermelon plant (the labels said so!) but they all grew looking the same -same leaves, same flowers, same fruits that seem to be cukes - I think someone at Lowes must have mislabeled a cucumber plant as watermelon. Weird.
On the supposedly-watermelon plant, one HUGE (normal length but very fat) cucumber grew first but it now turned yellow.
What's up with that?
Is it ok to eat or is it now over-ripe? (Still nice and firm.)
Is it possibly some sort of yellow squash instead? It looks like a cuke, except for being mostly yellow now.
It's definitely not a watermelon.
Ok, so in this video, she never does actually add the veggies together, but I was impressed that she knew there were three tomatoes without counting.
Update: A MOMS Club friend tells me, via Facebook, that:
You can eat it....sometimes when they turn yellow they sat on the vine too long or there is a lack of calcium in your plant.....it may also be bitter in the skin.....taste it first....it won't hurt you just will be a little bitter.....if it is then peel the skin and the flesh should be fine. :-) Sounds like you may have picked up a pickling cucumber....they are best when picked on the smaller side.
I believe they are technically berries. ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm not exactly sure what makes a berry a berry (hmm, I should google that) but I do know that both tomatoes (famously) and cucumbers (much less famously) are actually fruits.
ReplyDeleteA fruit is the ripened ovary of the plant, containing seeds.
Most of the "veggies" that we eat are actually fruits - cukes, zukes, all manner of squashes, peppers, and so on.
Actual vegtables come from the leaves (spinach), stem (celery) or root (carrot).
Thus endeth the botany lesson.
Wikipedia Says:
ReplyDeleteThe botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors. The seeds are usually embedded in the flesh of the ovary. A plant that bears berries is said to be bacciferous. Many species of plants produce fruit that are similar to berries, but not actually berries, and these are said to be baccate.
In everyday English, "berry" is a term for any small edible fruit. These "berries" are usually juicy, round or semi-oblong, brightly coloured, sweet or sour, and do not have a stone or pit, although many seeds may be present.
Many berries, such as the tomato, are edible, but others in the same family, such as the fruits of the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) and the fruits of the potato (Solanum tuberosum) are poisonous to humans. Some berries, such as Capsicum, have space rather than pulp around their seeds.
Or in everyday lingo, sweet = fruit, not sweet = veggie.
ReplyDeletelk
Any strangely, I don't think of grapes as berries.
ReplyDeletelk