A Lesson Learned

  As I usually do, last year I saved certain seeds from my garden.. I grew Melons of different kinds and cucumbers of different kinds saving the seeds so I wouldn't have to buy them again this year. Some of the things I saved were the seeds of Armenian Cucumbers and seeds from the Musk Melons.
  I planted the Cucumbers on a fence this year, the best thing I have ever done, saving lots of space and making it easier to harvest the cucumbers overall. The vines did really well and as the fruits started to come out I started to see what looked like Musk Melons growing where I planted the Armenian Cucumbers. Thinking I just mixed up the seeds, I thought "fine I will just have more Melons than I planned". As the "Melons" continued to grow, they began to get extremely elongated which baffled me as I had not planted these nor had I ever seen anything like them before. They looked like Musk Melons but were very long and skinny. I let them grow just to see what they would turn out to be but they just kept growing.
  I started to suspect there was some hybridization going on here so I started to research. Turns out that melons will cross pollinate with each other. The cross pollination actually happened last year and the seeds I planted were already destined to become a mix. But wait! Melons and Cucumbers don't cross pollinate so whats going on here! As I learned last year, Armenian Cucumbers are not really cucumbers, they are Melons! They are used more like a cucumber would be used, as they are hard and crunchy, than used as a Melon would be used. They can be used in salads or sauteed or pickled as a cucumber would.
  If left on the vine to ripen the hybrid will turn yellow and slip from the stem as a Musk Melon would but the flesh is not as orange or sweet as a Musk Melon is. You can definitely see and taste the influence of the Armenian Cucumber on this Hybrid. All in all they are not a bad thing to eat and they get huge so you have plenty of food. They go good in a fruit salad or a cucumber salad and are not bad eaten alone.
 The lesson? Don't grow different kinds of Melon right next to each other unless you are doing some genetics experiments!

Ripe Musk Melon

Armenian "Cucumber"

Hybrid Armuskian Cumelon!