I was so proud of a success never matched before in my home grown projects, the cucumbers came out relatively huge… that is until I got this very important information, which was like my balloon being pricked, nevertheless I am going on having a load of fun seeing it grow!
I have included a one mn video showing how to get rid of the poison. Personally, I’d rather not touch it. I rarely eat cucumber as I follow the guidelines of macrobiotic eating & it’s a nightshade(*see correction in comment) vegetable which means a big no-no. 🙂
I call my other plants a challenge as they are warm climate ones which I have to keep indoors all year round for the first two yrs then for many winter months.
A very gratifying experience. I always get a kick out of a good (positive obviously!) challenge.
Not many survive. I start off with a whole load then, left with one or two. Keep scrolling down to see my “exotic” plants 🙂
Out of precaution I kept my plants in a protected part of the balcony which is partially closed.
I wasn’t going to take any chances 😉
Have a great weekend!
Here’s the news I received…
“A 79-year-old German died after eating a home-grown zucchini. In the vegetable (probably one created by the plant itself) was poison. That poison can cause death in very rare cases.
The man and his wife were seriously ill after their meal. They were taken to hospital. The woman recovered, but the man continued to deteriorate and eventually died. The culprit is the substance cucurbitacine. Which was formerly naturally in courgettes and cucumbers to prevent animals from eating the vegetable. Growers have the past centuries with breeding programs managed to take away the poison. If people grow vegetables, it can still crop up. The advice is therefore (to home-grown courgettes) first to eat a raw piece. If the vegetables taste much more bitter than usual, then this are indicative of cucurbitacine. This also applies to pumpkins.”
Published on 27 Nov 2012
Cucumbers naturally can produce chemicals called cucurbitacins which causes the cucumber to be bitter. In large quantities, this chemical can make a person sick.
Did you know that?
And here I thought a cucumber was just a harmless vegetable.
I learned this method of reducing the bitterness from my mom.
The kids found this exercise rather amusing :).
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Science & Technology
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See all those cucumber sprouting everywhere?
My beautiful Litchi plant! That’s a very difficult one…
Two pomegranate trees left 🙂
So proud of my Kiwi tree which nearly died winter, had it wrapped up in a huge plastic bottle indoors as a greenhouse!
A close up… See the huge leaves?
My accidental date baby tree. I had thrown a pit in the earth & totally forgot about it… A beautiful summer surprise!
A citrus tree. Out of all of them this is the only one truly picking up 🙂
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