Bitter Melon Vine

I've got vines covering most fences and walls except for this small section of cyclone fence near the front. I was surprised when this wild vine popped up a little while ago.  It's very delicate with yellow flowers so I let it go to see how it would do. I missed the melon part because it was green and hidden in the vine.  When they get ripe they turn gold and pop open with seeds.  I'll look closer in the coming weeks to try to follow the whole process.  The seeds look like pomegranate seeds or granada. Hugo said they used to eat the whole fruit when they are young or the seeds which he calls granada.  Lots of these vines in the mountains.

Wild Bitter Melon Momordica charantia
A tropical vine with long, slender shoots, deeply lobed leaves and warty, oblong fruits that are edible when young and green but turn very bitter when mature and yellow. When fully ripe, the fruits break open to reveal seeds covered in soft, bright red and edible, sweet pulp. The plant has a wide array of medicinal properties and studies show that it could be effective against diabetes, cancer, HIV and malaria.

Flower and melon

Granada seeds

Saw the actual melon today and had to add it

I've seen pictures of much larger varieties but this is mine

Granada China

Was over at a neighbors yesterday and he showed me a vine with fruit he simply called Granada (pomegranate). The fruit was very green like in the first foto and evidently not ripe. This fruit never gets real sweet but is very acidic before it turn yellow. It is in the passion flower/fruit family but a distant cousin.

The bottom foto is often called granada or maracuyá dulce but looks a little different than the one we have. This leaves me confused and still investigating. I'll keep an eye on the fruit as it matures.

Granada China

passiflora edulis

passiflora ligularis

My front gate project

This is my front gate and I had to put up a wire mesh for two reasons. The neighbor kids down the street got a new puppy that loved to squeeze thru the bars and harass my cats and poop in the yard. The kids were also ringing my front bell a couple times a day asking for the puppy back.

The second reason is when I'm gone I've been leaving food in the garage in case the 'caretaker' can't get the cats back in the house before she leaves. My cats don't mind very well. Of course this garage food was available for any hungry cat in the neighborhood. So now that I'm back a few cats that I don't know feel welcome to come in the house when I'm not looking. They also have a habit pooping in the middle of the lawn.

Today I bought 8 meters of this wire mesh and I had a roll of wire. 8 meters because I was thinking of going two levels high (meter each) with this new fence/gate. Just as I was finishing the car gate about 6-8 kids came over and reminded me that the smaller person gate needs to be covered or the puppy could get thru. I agreed but was gonna probably be a tomorrow thing for me. They were just too enthused to wait for tomorrow so we cut a piece to fit and they did most of the wiring the mesh to the iron bars. Even tho they had not done anything like that before they really tried hard in total earnestness. Cutting the wire, twisting the wire and I only had to give them a few hints.

End result is it is done. Not like I would have done it but it works. And this is Mexico and these were well behaved kids learning and trying. After they had to do somersaults in the grass and take home a few pomegranates (granadas) and limes they found in the backyard.

My front gate


The wire mesh


My neat wire twists


The kids work

Pomegranate - Granada

When you have a Pomegranate tree in your yard and a nice red one falls off now and then ... whatcha gonna do. Don't think I've eaten them since I was a kid in California with red stained hands and clothes. They were just too much work for little results. The only exception since has been chiles en nogada a few times in Mexico.

So today a nice red one on the ground made me want to learn a little more .... and the water trick below in the YouTube video looks like a clean approach. According to the Internet they come ripe in cooler months and my tree is full of green ones

In Mexico, pomegranate seeds are an essential ingredient of chiles en nogada, a favored food symbolizing the red component of the national flag.

A green one on my tree

Fruit in the yard

So far quite amazed at the weather and not surprised that so many varieties of fruit grow here in the Lake Chapala area - although a little over a week is not much of a weather monitor.

The avocado tree was cleaned out by my landlord just after I'd agreed to rent. I doubt there will be more this season. The mango tree looks far from season but healthy. Only four stalks of sugar cane. Palms of the decorative sort only (5). The tangerine tree is loaded with sweet, juicy and full of seed fruit. The guayaba is badly pruned with most over the wall into my neighbors yard. Both large and small limes - large the size of lemons - small like key limes. The apple tree has been butchered from bad pruning and I'll try to clean it up this winter. And I've never seen a pomegranate tree but I have one.

I'm tempted to get down on Mexican gardeners and the way they treat fruit trees ... but I've known gringo friends up north that have done much worse. It's not easy and even I could use a little (Internet) help with the apple.

Pomegranate and flower


Tangerine


Large Lime with bug


Apple