This unique and interesting plant called Bittermelon plant, also known as the bitter gourd or bitter squash, is one of the most popular vegetables in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, India and the Philippines. It’s a beautiful trellising plant with deeply lobed leaves and a wondrous eye-catching fruit that grows from pale green to yellow to orange as it ripens. Despite its beauty, it is an acquired taste as it is more bitter than an unripe grapefruit or very dark chocolate. Most people find the first taste is a mouth-puckering experience.
The fruit is most often eaten green or as it begins to turn yellow. At this stage the fruit's flesh is crunchy and watery in texture, similar to pepper or cucumber, but bitter. As the fruit ripens, the flesh (rind) becomes tougher and too bitter to be eaten. The pith (inside) becomes sweet and intensely red; it can be eaten uncooked in this state, and is a popular ingredient in some Southeast Asian salads. This melon is worth acquiring a taste for as it serves a nutritional punch, offering iron, twice the beta carotene of broccoli, twice the potassium of bananas, and twice the calcium of spinach. It also contains high amounts of fiber, phosphorous, and Vitamins C, B1, B2, and B3. It is used as a preventive cure for malaria, and helps maintain health in diabetics along with many other herbal remedies.
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What you'll get with your order:
- Two very nice, good-sized plants, each 4" to 7" tall. Not leggy, not plugs, not seeds.
- Individually grown and shipped in 3.5" pots. The generous pot size offers you plants with a well-developed root system, giving you a head start to fruit.
- We stand behind all of our products and we carefully package our plants and ship them quickly so they're ready to plant when you get them. If anything happens during shipment, we'll replace it!
- Every order includes our exclusive instruction booklet with helpful hints on planting a herb garden.
Place plants 9 to 10 feet apart in a sunny location (requires at least 6 hours of sunlight). Bittermelon needs a fertile well-draining soil with ample watering. Mulching around the plant will help retain the soil moisture that this plant needs. This plant produces vines 13 to 16 feet long and will need trellis fencing for support. Expect harvest in 60 days-from seeding.