Thanh Nguyen's Homegarden Thanh Nguyen's Homegarden
Khô qua (Bitter melon)
Momordica charantia
Thanh
Nguyen's Homegarden
Thanh
Nguyen's Homegarden
Nhan
Couch's Homegarden
Nhan
Couch's Homegarden
Select a plant below to find out more: From the Lietrature:
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Homegardener Knowledge
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Khô
qua, or bitter melon, grows best in tropical areas, including parts of
the Amazon, east Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, and South America.
It also thrives well here in the warm temperatures of the Southeast.
Khô qua has slender, climbing vines with square sided stems and a
very distinctive musky odor. The leaves have a toothed appearance with
5 to 7 leaflets. There are yellow, solitary male and female flowers borne
in the leaf axils. The fruit has a bumpy exterior and can be from
1 to 8 inches long or more. It can range from pale to dark green
in color when ready for harvest and turns a bright orange when ready
to collect for seeds. If left on the vine for seeds, the fruit will
split into 3 parts which curl back, revealing bright-red, sticky arils
(seed coverings) enclosing white or brown seeds which resemble little shields
in shape.
(Sources: http://www.rain-tree.com and http://altnature.com)
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Copyright © 2002 Introduced Germplasm From Vietnam: Documentation, Acquisition, and Propagation. All rights reserved.
"I like
bitter melon so much. You can eat if somebody has diabetes."
According
to Tu Huynh, you can use bitter melon to make a tea by drying the leaves.
"It is like medicine and is good for [your] health."