Before this summer, I'd had bitter melon exactly once and somebody else cooked it.

However, this year, when I saw I had the time to try new things in the garden, one of the new things I tried to grow was a white (actually pale green) Okinawan bitter melon that's supposed to be less...well...bitter than some other varieties.

Bitter melon is one of the things about the Okinawan diet that is touted as a possible reason so many Okinawans live past 100. It's supposed to be good for your blood sugar, and mine stays borderline. The bitter flavor comes from a quinine derivative. I already take hydroxychloroquine for neuralgias, so eating bitter melon might help with those. (And if the Trumpists are right that it protects against COVID, so much the better.)

Unfortunately, my bitter melon vine has only made two fruits. A gentleman on the Oklahoma gardening Facebook page I frequent posted a picture and his are covered with fruits. He told me that I should use "a lot of chicken poops" when I plant. Good to know.

Amyway, I cooked the second bitter melon tonight. I salted it first, which is supposed to help with the bitterness, and let it sit while I chopped up some eggplant and onions from the garden and some garlic and shishito peppers from the CSA. I sauteed all that together, added some shrimp, and stirred in some fermented black bean sauce from a jar.

It was really good! Does anybody have any more bitter melon recipes I can try when my vine decides to make another one?

Had never heard of bitter melon as something you grow - My only experience with a bitter sort of melon was when I got one accidentally (by letting a volunteer grow from a previous years melon - as I understand it, they cross easily with other varieties and the result is often inedible). Now I am off to google to see what this is.

I live in a vegetable gardening wasteland - very difficult to grow things here without a greenhouse. We just ate our very first red tomato from the container I have on my back patio. And my day lilies have just *started* blooming. And winter is coming soon.

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Okinawan bitter melon

Oh! I didn't know what was what it was called in English, though it makes perfect sense! In Japanese, it's "goya" but I guess in the US, that would be confused with something else wouldn't it.

I've only ever had it in Japan and when someone else cooked it. Sometimes I thought it was awful, other times fantastic. Now I wonder if that was the preparation or the variety being used (though, probably both).

I noticed that the local Indian grocery carries it, so being adventurous, I tried it. And found it inedible. There must be ways of preparing it to make it palatable.

I got my seeds from rareseeds.com. Here's that they say about bitter melon. I haven't tried the stuffed bitter melon recipe they mention at the end.

"A native of India, bitter melon can be stewed, curried, steamed, braised, pickled or cooked with scrambled eggs. Cooking tempers the bitterness, as does serving it with yogurt on the side. It's not for everyone, but many people who try bitter melon for the first time love the flavor. It is rich in iron, contains twice the beta-carotene of broccoli, twice the calcium of spinach, and twice the potassium of banana. Bitter melon is also used in Chinese cooking for its bitter flavor, typically in stir fries, soups, dim sum, and herbal teas.

One of the most loved dishes in northern India is stuffed bitter melon, called Bharwan Karela, though the recipe for each household is different. Sometimes the melon is peeled, and sometimes it is not. To prepare, slit the melon vertically, remove seeds, rub with salt and allow it to rest for 25 minutes. For the stuffing, spices, onions and a variety of fillings are fried. Rinse the melon and the bitterness will have been reduced by the salt. Carefully stuff the melon, tie with string and fry 3 - 4 minutes."

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In Japanese, it's "goya" but I guess in the US, that would be confused with something else wouldn't it.

Yeah, and we're boycotting them ...

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and we're boycotting them

I read this and at first thought "why are we boycotting Japanese?"

I bought one last year at our city farmer's market from an African vendor. I asked her how to cook it and she laughed and said she had no idea! Then a Cambodian woman gave me some tips but she warned me that it was very bitter. Boy, was she ever right. It was awful.

I don't know if the salting step is miraculous or if the variety I have is extremely mild, but I didn't find it to be much more bitter than the eggplant I cooked it with. Cooking it in oil mellowed things a lot, as did the contrast with the sweet shrimp I cooked it with. I've also had it with ground beef, which had the same effect.

I'd put it on a semi-regular rotation if I could get it, especially if doing so lowered my blood sugar.

I think my parents steamed or stir fried it with black bean garlic sauce. I never liked it as a kid.

Did your plant make a lot of flowers? Male and female? If the female flowers aren’t getting pollinated, you don’t get melons. If you didn’t get flowers, maybe you need more chicken poops!

My yellow crookneck squash put out a bunch of male flowers first. Then female flowers, with no male flowers to pollinate them. Finally had some of both, and I used a watercolor brush to make sure the deed was getting done. We have squash! After all that, when I went out to pollinate again, I saw a bee in the female flower, so Mother Nature is on duty, too.

It had tons of flowers (although not many right now), but all but two were male. The two female flowers made fruit without me pollinating them, which is good. They're so small and delicate, I couldn't see the stamens/anthers/whatever.

One variety of squash, an Indian variety named Devi, made lots of female flowers in the spring, which I hand-pollinated and about 80% of them made fruit. I only had the one plant and the squash borers killed it after about a month.

I planted two moschata squash varieties that are supposed to resist squash borers. One plant of each has survived the borers long enough to make three female flowers between them and I've gotten two fruits. Yay? Those plants are still limping along, but I don't have much hope.

I did finally succeed in getting pollinators into the garden, after years of having none. I've seen tons of bumblebees and butterflies, plus a few honeybees. I think everything needs more poops, but I also think I need to give up on squash until there's an organic treatment for squash borers. Not holding my breath on that one, but the bitter melon doesn't seem bothered by them.