P.S. The ground pork is not purchased as such, but it is ground from a leg roast or pork butt--much less fat that way.

There are various types of bitter mellon shapes and sizes. They are very prolific and vine upwards nicely.

Mary Anne

It grows very well here in South Texas if you give it enough water. Okinawa has a hot climate as well, but is much more humid and rainy than we normally get here.

;)

Most of my co-workers to whom I have shared the fruits spit them out and not one has enjoyed them the way I do but I'm motivated to love Bitter Melon not only because I grew them but because they are having a very positive affect on my blood sugar readings! I am diabetic.

I haven't gotten my quarterly AC1 readings since the bitter melons have been producing, but my daily readings seem to have dropped into an excellent range! I attribute the improvement to Bitter Melon and Okra. I am extremely excited with the results that I'm getting (in lowered blood sugar levels) and I plan to grow a whole lot more of these two fruits in 2012.

I'll be trying different varieties and I wonder if they all taste like the one that I grew this year (seeds were a hybrid from Stokes Seed I think?) or if there are different tastes among the many different varieties. I eat most of mine raw but have noticed that the few I've cooked have less of the bitter flavor than when eaten straight raw from the vine. I wish I had more and will try to continue to grow the plants I have in the greenhouse for as long as I can keep them producing.

To the original poster - bitter melons have a strong weedy, green and medicine/chemical/metal quality. They remind me of when I was a kid and put my tongue on the top of a 9 volt battery. I know it sounds awful but they somehow make you feel healthier just by tasting them and you don't have to eat a lot of them to notice the health benefits, just a bite or two each week will affect your health. Many places will mention the seeds are used as a candy in tropical Asia but I have never noticed it. The bright red, slimy seeds just taste like a chunk of vegetable with a hint of bitter melon tang.

You can reduce the bitterness by cutting into pieces after cleaning, and salting the pieces (this leeches out some of the bitterness) and/or by par-boiling the pieces before using them. Keeping the vines well watered also reduces the bitterness somewhat.

Bitter melon should be used immature, before the fruit begins to ripen. Once ripe, the red jelly-like flesh that surrounds the seeds is sweet & edible; if dried, it can be added to rice to color it during cooking. The seeds themselves should not be eaten. Some of our Filipino friends eat the vine tips & young leaves as a vegetable, but they are far too bitter for my taste.

The wife likes bitter melon, and as mentioned above, it helps to lower blood sugar. I've tried to grow enough to parboil & freeze for winter use, but she generally gives most of it away to friends (it surprises me that so many are interested!) She generally uses bitter melon in soups; our favorite is an egg soup with bitter melon, tomato, and chicken. Some of our Filipino friends add it to "pinakbet", a thick stew with eggplant, winter squash, lima beans, chayote squash, and pretty much whatever fresh vegetable is on hand. Even with the best variety & treatment to reduce bitterness, however, the taste is not for everyone.

Tracy, I've been trying to stabilize a Chinese hybrid for several years (don't know the name, it's in Chinese characters).

The fruits are low in bitterness, have thick walls, and are about the size of a cucumber if well cared for. If you would like to try some seed, contact me through my Member Page.

That said... I'm not sure that bitter melon would be the best thing to feed chickens.