Medium Long of Massafrese

For the most part, my ideal situation for offering seed to others is to ensure that I know exactly what the variety will look like. Experience has taught me that what is pictured on the packet is often different from what actually grows. Case in point is my experience last summer with the Medium Long of Massafrese. I offered these seed for a while, which seem to be the same thing as my friend Giuseppe's Carosello Leccese (Spuredda or Meloncella) Fasciata.

Overall, the fruit looks much like a Tondo Carosello Massafra. In fact, it is just as oval as the splotched Massafrese that I grow. I am still on the lookout for the half-long cylindrical Carosello (C. melo) that exhibits dark skin with light stripes. All the moving that I have done has decreased my germination of this variety to a point at which I no longer offer it. The similarity between it and the Carosello Massafra is so great that it seems like more like a Tondo Massafra than anything else.

 

Despite some good looking cucumbers, the growth of the plants was incredibly slow. The majority of seed did not sprout and the majority of the plants that sprouted did not make it to maturity. I wanted so much to save the seeds and pass them on to others. However, the plants were so weak that any hope I had to have the fruit grow to maturity was lost when the plant with the most promising fruit suddenly stopped growing and started dying. It didn't help that the germination was poor from this seed company, which told me that their germination was 100%! Sometimes, the only thing a seed-saver can do is eat their carosello.