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* This recently introduced fruit from the Andes looks like a very large cream colored goose egg with beautiful purple staining in the smooth skin. It has a mild, lightly sweet taste and is becoming popular as a vegetable in salads or cooked in stews. Also is very ornamental as a foliage plant - 3' height, shrubby, small oval leaves and easily grown indoors in sunny location. "Pepino" means cucumber in Spanish. However, since the pepino is more like a melon, it is called pepino melon, melon pear or bush melon. But, in fact it is related to the tomato and the potato The pepino melon is native to the temperate Andean regions of Colombia, Peru and Chile. The plant is not known in the wild, and the details of its origin are not known. The fruit is grown commercially in New Zealand, Chile and Western Australia. The pepino melon plant or bush is about 1 m high and looks a lot like a potato plant. The flowers are small, blue, violet-purple or white marked with purple and they are similar to unopened potato flowers. The plant will not set fruit until the night temperature reaches above 18 C. The fruits show considerable diversity in the shape; some being oblong while others are pear or heart shaped. It is up to 15 cm long and 7 cm in diameter. The colour of the smooth skin is from pale green to golden yellow with purple stripes. The fruit flesh is greenish to yellowish-orange and very juicy. The taste is a combination of cantaloupe melon and a cucumber and not particularly sweet. The fruit flesh contains a lot of sweet seeds, which are edible. The ripe fruit is generally eaten fresh like an apple. Both the skin and the fruit flesh can be eaten. It can, however, also be cut in halves and eaten like other melons. The unripe fruit can be baked like a squash.
