LETHBRIDGE- A garden in Lethbridge has produced an unusual plant.
Randilee Farnquist planted pumpkins and cucumbers this year, and while the pumpkins turned out normal the cukes looked a little odd.
“They started out green and they ended up becoming orange,” Farnquist explained. “The insides are more like a pumpkin, they’re very juicy and they’re very salty. They’re edible but not the greatest thing in the world to eat.”
She’s calling them ‘cuc-umpkins.’
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The cucumbers and pumpkins were seeded in rows 18 inches apart.
“Cucumbers aren’t squash,” said Farnquist. “We thought that planting them that far apart would be fine, that they wouldn’t cross pollinate or anything like that.”
But can they cross?
Rob Spencer, a horticulturist with Alberta agriculture said cucumbers and pumpkins won’t cross because they’re not the same genus.
Spencer speculates the cuc-umpkins may have come from something stress-related or even a genetic anomaly.
Farnquist isn’t sure what she’ll do with them yet, and plans to save some of the seeds for next year to find out if they’re fertile.
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