BITTER MELON

Glad to see you back again, I hope all of you are well?

Last time we discussed avocados and their many uses. This time we will discuss Bitter Melon.

When I was a child we grew Bitter Melon both in our yard and on our farm.  The challenge was to make this powerful vegetable taste good as by itself it is really quite bitter.

The way my ancestors dealt with this bitterness was to add sugar, and cook the Bitter Melon with scrambled eggs, shrimp, onions, garlic, a dash of oil and voila a Bitter Melon gourmet meal. But wait this isn’t an article on Bitter Melon recipes, so let’s refocus.

Bitter melon-Momordica Charantia is a tropical and subtropical vine of the family Cucurbitaceae, widely grown for edible fruit, which is among the most bitter of all vegetables. Bitter Melon is known to have medicinal qualities that benefit digestion and Diabetes just to mention a few.                                                         

To add this vegetable to your garden you can find seeds both on-line and at numerous gardening outlets.  Here is one example: http://www.evergreenseeds.com.  If your soil is not suited for this vegetable you can find this vegetable at your local Asian grocery store.                                                                                          

I love this veggie and I grow it myself in my backyard, because everything is useful, from the leaves, to the stem, to the vegetable itself. In our dialect Visayan we call this powerful veggie-Ampalaya. Try it in your next veggie soup.                                                           

If you want to know more about Bitter Melons go to www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitter_melon

Next time when we will talk about Cucumbers – so until then keep it growing and keep it green!

 

Clara Simpson was born in a small farming community in the Philippines 63 years ago. She is an eternal optimist and believer that if it can be done she can do it. She has now offered her services to http://www.yoursecondfifty.com to help you enhance your gardening green thumb.