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Egusi Melon Citrullus Lanatus subsp lanatus Seeds
Packet of 5+ super rare seeds!
I had a few dramas with roos and wallabies while we were on a recent seed collecting road trip so this harvest was only small.
Make sure you wack your email on the notify list if sold out by the time you get here.
This is a plant that I am sure will be popular, one I spent many many years tracking down!
It’s originally from Nigeria and it is super rare outside it’s natural range.
Back home it is grown strictly for it’s seeds which are large and fat, very high in oil and thin shelled.
The fruit are grown in between other crops like cocoa, coffee, and grains, and they require no additional inputs providing an essential food crop, cooling the soil and minimizing weeds all at the same time.
Big fan of Unusual Melon Crops, and this one is very closely related to the supermarket Watermelon, except this fella is a seed crop only. The flesh and skin is bitter and inedible.
The seeds are easy to remove from the flesh and they are either eaten whole after roasting, or they are pressed to remove the oil(~40%!) and then remaining high protein seed cake is fried and eaten.
Seeds are sold whole or hulled in packets for eating as a snack or adding to dishes, and it is also sold as a powder to be used like flour or added to soups and stews as a thickener and protein supplement.
It is known by many common names and these names are shared with many other melon species with the most common being Egusi melon.
These are are a few of the others.
Arbuz, bara, bateech, budzi, buttiku, chimwamaji, chimwanyanza, chimwela, chitatakunda, chivwembe, edible-seed melon, egusi ibara, hab-hab, ibara, inkhabe, kare, khujar, maji, makavatya, masindi, masindi, mavwende, melon d’eau, mkubwa, mokgatse, mtikiti, mtikiti, mugibe, munwisi, munwiwa, muvembe, muvise, ntanga, ntanga, oontanga, pasteque, seed melon, tsamma, waatlemoen, wartlemoen, wassermelone, watermelon, zere, or zéré.
Before you email me this NOT the Australian weed Citrullus colocynthis~Paddy melon, though some semi-domesticated forms of Citrullus colocynthis are used the same way in Africa and also share the common name “Egusi melon”.
They are not this guy, this is the real deal Citrullus lanatus subspecies lanatus, Egusi Melon.
Grown by me and the Mrs organically, no chems, no nasties, no problems!!!
