Don;t know its optimum temp range but I know it is grown and will fruit in Lake Worth, Palm Beach County, Florida.

Rob

Rodney,

David from cloudforest is growing it in the central valley. You can ask him questions about it, I have looked into maybe trying to grow it myself (however I have no room for a large perennial vine atm).

aside from using it as a fresh & natural food coloring sub, what or how do you use your gac? My uncle has a very healthy growing vine, yet to fruit, in zip 92127. I don't know how it compares to your zone.

Tim

it looks somewhat like bitter melon or what the Trinis here call careilly.

Im pretty sure every tropical fruit grower in South Florida has at least one of those in there yard

I've read that the pulp around the seeds are edible. The rind is toxic, though.

Bryan, I believe what you're showing is in fact a smaller bitter melon variety. Gac is a much bigger sized fruit. I remember seeing that bitter melon before, just can't recall it's exact name.

Tim

I don't grow Gac melon...but lord knows I have a heck of a lot of what was posted by Bryan (mango kush) above. I always called what Bryan posted as Balsam Melon. I have seen it called Bitter Melon also. Its a pain in the butt. It'll over grow an entire tree if you let it.

Harry