Nice. I grew them a few years ago and found a few volunteers the year after. Do you like them? I‘ve found them to be very productive and seem to last longer than ordinary cucumbers, but I’m not sure whether I’ll grow them again. They’re a nice novelty I guess, but in my family it seems like they’re one of those things that only the gardener gets a kick out of eating...

That's cool. I barely got any fruit, let alone self sowers. I've tried them twice. Just don't get enough heat I think.

@floral Have you tried West India burr gherkins? I'm not sure how they do in cool climates, but they sprout at reasonably low temperatures for cucurbits, and they have bigger fruit than cucamelons. I'm not sure if they reseed, if you leave some fruits, though.

@zeedman

Awesome. I read about a kind without so many prickles. (I just looked it up again.) It's Liso Calcutta. Is that like what you have?

We're trying to trellis West India burr gherkins this year, and I'm noticing what you said (how they like to grow low). In fact, they like to grow below the black plastic earlier in the season. We're just manually arranging them on the trellis. They're starting to fruit decently now. I think I got about thirty of them, today.

Seed of West Indian Burr Cucumber appears to be hard to source here. The only sellers I've found are abroad. The info I've found on it says it needs to be grown under protection in the U.K.

Cucamelon, on the other hand, is available from commercial sellers and I'm pretty sure it might succeed for people with sunnier gardens than mine.

"Awesome. I read about a kind without so many prickles. (I just looked it
up again.) It's Liso Calcutta. Is that like what you have?"

Yes, that is what I grew. A few plants were almost completely spineless, I hope to select for further improvement in future generations. Even the prickliest fruits, though, were less spiny than the WI gherkin.