The Pepino File

Earlier this year, I wrote about how I solved a small mystery in my garden by turning to my various communities — family, friends, and online. It was the last one — online — that delivered in that case.

While we hear lots of criticisms of social media, for good reason, when used judiciously they can be a blessing. The photo at the top of this post is both a reminder of that and an update.

Here again is that essay.

***

Well, it wasn’t exactly investigative reporting, but I discovered that I had a small mystery on my hands Monday evening.

As I checked my plants in the garden, a new item caught my eye. It was a whitish globe on a plant with leaves shaped like elongated Isosceles triangles and clusters of small purple flowers.

The fruit peeking out from behind the leaves was white, as I said, with several faint purple stripes.

I’m pretty sure we had gotten this particular plant from a neighbor a year ago;, and at the time my daughter thought it might be a pepper of some kind.

As I felt the surface of the fruit, it reminded me of an onion, but only sort of.

So I started my investigation. I snapped a photo and sent it to my daughter-in-law, an avid gardener.

“Eggplant?” She offered.

My son-in-law and granddaughters thought it might be a pear apple.

At this point I took the case online and after a bit of searching, found myself inside a very helpful Reddit group devoted to identifying unknown plants.

There, an answer came quickly, without ambiguity.

“It’s a pepino, a small melon. When it turns gold it’s ripe and tastes like a tropical fruit, when unripe it’s unremarkable and like a tasteless cucumber.”

Another member clarified: “Yes but it’s not a melon, it’s a nightshade (Solanaceae), but it’s also called pepino-melon.”

Okay, I’m going with pepino, for now. Let’s let it ripen.

P.S. It did.

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