Can we make a list here for my benefit, of the cucurbits that are grown in peoples gardens for food? This is my favorite category of plant because of their size and rate of growth. This is what I understand people to grow:
Cucurbita pepo
Cucurbita moschata
Cucurbita maxima
Cucurbita mixta (is this a separate species than moschata?)
Cucurbita ficifolia shark fin melon
Cantaloupes
Watermelons
Cucumbers
Mirliton (chayote)
Please add others that you know of
For example Kiwano and luffa?
I grow achocha or caigua, aka Cyclanthera pedata. Also called Bolivian cucumber.
A distant cuke relative from the Andes. I don’t grow it every single year, but often. It sure attracts a lot of attention with those leaves 
I love to grow it at home too, on the terrace, and see how people react.
Everything about the plant is strange.
It has seeds unlike any cucurbits I know of. They are hard and irregularly shaped. They feel like a piece of tree bark.
One can literally see where that vigor comes from. At such a tender age, to have such roots explains everything to me. Like some alien life form. Perhaps not even carbon-based!
It likes to go rampant! This is a warning.
It climbs onto and suffocates everything… be careful with that thing. A lot of potato flowers got pwned that year. And the beans on the same poles totally outcompeted. I learned that lesson. Achocha doesn’t like to share poles.
Pwned potato flower!
I could imagine using achocha, trailing freely on the ground, to block out weeds. I actually wanted to try that some years ago but never quite got there.
cucumis melo (sweet melons and some eaten young as cucumbers)
cucumis anguria (like small cucumbers)
cucumis metulliferus (kiwano)
cucumis zambianus (more like a cucumber)
yes luffa (at least two species)
lagenaria siceraria (gourds, some are edible: something in beatween eggplant and zucchinis, huge white flower)
benincasa hispida (wax gourd)
momordica charantia (bitter gourd)
tricosanthes cucumerina (snake gourd, nicest flower!
Oh, come on, woohoo, more things that I want to grow…
Was thinking to put in a seed or two but I only have 8 in total, so…
Did you receive the stuff? Somebody signed for it. Was it you?
Right after reading the message, run to my neighbor, ring the bell, ask if the package is there. Yes, I got the package.
Very beautiful. Thank y’all for the replies and the pictures
I’ve grown Melothria trilobata and really like them. I’ve wanted to grow other Melothria too, M. pendula should be good too.
Cyclanthera brachystachya is sometimes mixed up with Cyclanthera pedata. Both are similar, very little flesh and almost entirely consist of cucumber-like skin.
Monkfruit is apparently a cucurbit. (Siraitia grosvenorii.) Blew my mind!
Has anybody mentioned cassabanana yet? (Sicana odorifera.) I just bought a few seeds of it, and I’m excited to grow it next year.
