By Alanturk
Wiltshire,
United Kingdom 
A couple of years ago my wife and I had a holiday near Stratford-upon-Avon. Near the hotel was a place where one could buy all sorts of plants and vegetables, together with a huge array of various ornamental gourds. We bought several and tried to treat them as instructed to prevent them from rotting, but to no avail, so into the compost bin they all eventually went. This year we have had something grow that I suspect came from a seed in one of the gourds. It had several male flowers and one female, that has been developing since to what you can see in one of the attached photos. Can anyone identify it, please? I wonder if it is edible, and if so, how can I tell when it is ripe and how should it be prepared for eating? Any ideas anyone?
30 Aug, 2016
Answers
I think it may be a Crystal Apple Cucumber ?
Look it up on Thompson & Morgans seeds, you will find them on there :o))
Not sure the leaves are the same though?
Jackie x
30 Aug, 2016
It looks like an ornamental gourd to me. Edible though bland when small and green, but tough and bitter once they get any size.
31 Aug, 2016
I've grown apple cucumbers and they are pale green and a lot smaller.
31 Aug, 2016
On Gardenlovers site that I go on, one of the members in Canada "Benita" said this......
(Ya that's the crystal apples or crystal lemons. The leaves are more squash like I think too. I love these mysteries!)
Another member Glenys said this.....
I think it's a squash. I wonder if it might be Gold Nugget squash. They don't grow too big and are the size of a grapefruit apparently.
31 Aug, 2016
Thank you for the comments. Having Googled Crystal Apple Cucumber and Gold Nugget squash and looked at pictures of them, I don't think it's actually either of them, but thanks for the suggestions anyway. So it remains a mystery, but we like it and may cut it in due course and try to do a better job of preserving it than we did last time.
3 Sep, 2016
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It looks like ornamental to me so I don't think I'd want to eat it.
30 Aug, 2016