New Excuse For Not Cleaning Up: Wild Cucumbers In the Brush Pile!

A few months ago I noticed a lawn company cleaning up a bunch of brush and vines from a neighbor's yard. I asked the fellow doing the work if he would mind dumping their truck of brush at my place.

He looked at me like I was crazy. Which was okay - I'm used to that.

I finally convinced him to dump it at my place but he wouldn't dump it in the yard. Probably scared I would sue him or something. So he dumped the brush in my front swale in front of the fence.

When I went to start picking it up to throw over the fence, I realized that it was such a tangle of vines that it would be a serious pain to move... so I left it to dry out and rot for a while.

Then a week or two ago, I took another shot at it, along with the "help" of my two-year-old.

I started dragging vines to throw over the fence... and then I noticed this:

It was obviously a cucurbit of some sort so I stopped what I was doing in case I broken any of the tiny vines... then I went inside and looked it up. This is what I found, thanks to Green Deane.

Edible.

I couldn't find any fruit, though it had a lot of little blooms as you can see. That meant I couldn't move the brush... since it had become a trellis for a potential food source.

See? I'm not lazy! I'm just growing food holistically. Or something.

A few days ago I found a few fruit and Rachel and I tried them. A nice little burst of cucumber flavor in a bean-sized package. I think I'll see if I can find some ripe fruit so I can save the seeds and scatter them around my food forest for next year.

Good thing I have nice neighbors.