What is a Cucurbit?

Post by Gerard Gonzales, Outdoor Education Specialist at Kidspace

The Harvest Corner is looking great, and just in time! Our Harvest Corner activity for the week is Cucurbits. These are the family of plants that includes melons, squash, gourds, cucumbers, and watermelons. They all belong to the family cucurbitaceae. The main characteristics of this family of plants are large fruits, vine growth and five-sided hairy stems.

As part of the Harvest Corner we will taste some cucurbits grown in our garden. These are cucumbers, crookneck squash and our giant zucchini. We are just getting a few pumpkin and melon flowers, so they will be available later in the season. We also have three gourds that were grown and cured at Kidspace last year.

Come on by the Harvest Corner this week between 11:30am and 1:00pm to learn more and taste cucurbits! Or you can just check out the garden and see what else we have growing.