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In today's episode we will see how to grow Bitter Melon or Bitter Gourd
And its very easy to grow them in containers as you will see in this video
So let's get started in this episode of growing this interesting melon or gourd
Bitter Melon don't transplant very well, so I recommend that you sow the seeds directly
in the soil
And we're going to be growing these Bitter Melons in containers
You can easily grow them in containers and all you need to do is make sure that you support
the plants well using stakes or cages
Bitter Melons are not very heavy feeders
However, once they start flowering, you need to seriously think about adding fertilizers
to ensure vigorous growth as well as decent production of the Bitter Melons
And remember that the Bitter Melons will get big only if you add fertilizer at the right
time during the growing period
So you have choices between organic fertilizers or if you wish to use synthetic fertilizers,
there are some other options as well which you can see on the screen
No matter what you do, when the Bitter Melon plant is growing well, make sure you water
it well and add the right fertilizers
Bitter Melon plants need some kind of staking
So as you can see here I have used a common tomato cage that you can at garden stores
to support this plant
I am also using a couple of rebars that you can see, to hold the tomato cage in place
And this plant is being grown in a 16 inch container
A 16 inch wide, 16 inch high container
And this is a pretty good size for growing this Bitter Melon plant
So as the Bitter Melon plant grows, you will see that the fruits will start developing
And they develop pretty quickly actually, compared to almost all the other melons
And although it may seem tempting to harvest this melon at this size, you really need to
be patient with this plant
Because in the summer season, you will see that the fruits develop but then they grow
very slowly sometimes, taking up to a week to mature
A fruit of about this size can be harvested, but I would still wait for a few more days
before this fruit can be harvested
Remember that if you wait too long though, there is a very good chance that your Bitter
Melon will start becoming hard and fibrous
And as you keep growing this plant, you will soon have an experience of harvesting this
melon at the right time
So yes, you could harvest this melon at this size
You would get slightly smaller fruit size
Now an important point about the Bitter Melon plant is that when the plant is growing, you
are going to see these small yellow bitter melons developing
Now you do not want to keep those on your plants because those are not the healthy ones
These are the healthy melons
They will be green - light or dark green
And this is what you should be harvesting
So the harvesting is really simple, you just snip it off at the top where it is attached
to the plant
And if you can see the size is pretty good to harvest the bitter melon
So we've harvested three of our Bitter Melons
And this should give you a good idea of the size they should be when you are harvesting
them
And in the growing season, you will get many opportunities to harvest your Bitter Melons
Because it is such a vigorously growing plant
The only key is to make sure that you support it well
And throughout the summer, it's gonna give you some nice Bitter Melons that you can harvest
We're going to be harvesting a few here
Those look pretty big and nice
Now although the Bitter Melon is bitter in taste, you can really get the flavor out of
the Bitter Melon by following this simple step
Peel the Bitter Melon really well
Make sure you take off the skin in most of the areas
And what you're gonna be realizing is that after we do this step
You will really start to enjoy the flavor of the Bitter Melon even if you haven't had
one before
The next step is to wash the Bitter Melons really well
That takes off most of the bitterness
And now what we're gonna do is slice it and take out all the seeds from within the melon
Do that for all the melons that you have harvested
And now we take some sea salt
Remember sea salt works the best for this step
So you just take some sea salt and rub it all over the melon - just like that
So my wife was kind enough to make some nice bitter melons for me when we harvested these
over the weekend
SO she is doing all the hard work of preparing the Bitter Melons
So as you cab see, she has now completed the step of rubbing the Bitter Melon with salt
all over it
And now what we're gonna do is just let it remain at room temperature for some time
So the Bitter Melons are now all prepared and ready to be cooked!
And remember, people eat the Bitter Melon for its taste
Some people do like the bitterness, but the taste is really amazing once you know how
to prepare a Bitter Melon
The Bitter Melon is also very healthy fr you
It has a lot of health benefits
And I'm sure that once you start enjoying your Bitter Melons, you'll never look back
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