Kitchen Garden Forum

It's amazing to notice all the tiny differences in plants from the Cucumis family (and many others too). I figured this might be great to share!

I took some photos of my tiny Cucumis seedlings and a Citrullus lanatus, which strangely looks exactly the same as all Cucumis family members. For most of them, the true difference can only be seen when the first real leaves start to show up.

Yes, I have sown all of these a bit too early. Mainly because I'm in a huge need for lots of pictures: I need every stage of every plant and I have my reasons...

So here it is, part of the Cucumis plant family, starting with the famous one!

Cucumis metuliferus (Kiwano)


Cucumis sativus (Cucumber)


Cucumis melo (Honeydew)

Tiny differences indeed but can definitely see the family resemblance! You are definitely going to need a bigger greenhouse to grow all of them or are you planning to sell? I think you could certainly make some money to off set the cost of the greenhouse by sowing & selling online! Germination itself is sometimes dodgy & seeds can be expensive to buy so you could do quite well selling the more unique established plants.

Actually I have an online kitchen garden shop and I'm doing the best I can to grow A LOT so I can sell them in the store. For the people who like growing without sowing

But there's a huge chance a lot of them end up outdoors aswell. I have one cucumber variety that said "Outdoor Cucumber" on the packaging, so I might put those in containers. Up against the building some may grow really well this summer.

You surprise on so many fronts - ahead of me by a mile but I did have that psychic moment! Best of luck! If you are able to post to the UK maybe pop the link to your kitchen garden site on here? You've encouraged quite a few of us to try different things but our early conditions usually mean failure but we do get the temp later!

Thank you so much!

First I have to figure out how to ship to the UK. I can imagine a thing or two have changed together with brexit and one of those changes may include the shipping price. Good thing you have just reminded me to start and figure this out!