“Miracle berry, watermelon, striped round weight.
He grew up all summer on the ground, and matured - and on the table.
A dark side, a solid look, if you slap it from the side, it will ring. "
People are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the summer heat. We love summer not so much for the warm sea or the gentle sun. A fertile period gives a fruit harvest. And what kind of watermelons ripen in summer! Eating juicy watermelon pulp, we think, is a watermelon a berry or a fruit? Vegetable? It's time to deal with the pressing problem from the point of view of botany.
What really is a watermelon, and why is it a berry
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Actually, lovers of these gifts of nature, of which there are many among the people, do not particularly ask themselves the question of what a watermelon is - a berry, a fruit, or, in general, a vegetable. The ancestor of modern minke whales is the colocynth plant native to the Mediterranean, Asia and some regions of Africa. Some use the poetic name of the vine of Sodom to refer to it in honor of the vine creeping along the ground. The fruits of the colocynth are small, about the size of an apple, and have a patchy, dense skin and white flesh. In accordance with the signs fixed in botany, a berry is a fruit with a juicy pulp, in a dense skin, containing a large number of seeds. It is interesting that even apples, pears, citrus fruits fall under these classification criteria. By the way, from the point of view of botanists, the well-known, tasty and healthy raspberries and blackberries are not berries in the usual sense, but polydrupes, since they consist of small drupes combined into a single whole. Strictly speaking, even a strawberry is a false berry, since its fruit - small dark and light grains on the surface - is not formed from the ovary, but from the receptacle. Cherries and cherries are drupes, and rose hips are a false berry. Thus, the fruit of a watermelon, which from a botanical point of view is correctly called a pumpkin, since the plant belongs to the Pumpkin family, is considered to be a berry due to the presence of juicy pulp with a large number of seeds enclosed in a dense rind.
Berry contraindications
It is no secret to anyone that any product has both beneficial and harmful properties. Watermelon is no exception in this case. DFor use by a certain category of people, it is contraindicated:
- For children under the age of two, it is not recommended to eat the product before September. It is in this month that the product matures on its own without the addition of any nitrates and harmful substances.
- For pregnant women who are in the last months of gestation.
- With diarrhea. This is due to the fact that the product has a laxative effect, which can only aggravate the problem.
- For sand and kidney stones. Due to the diuretic effect, they can begin to move, which can provoke colic.
It is also worth noting that seeds have a certain effect. They promote the elimination of harmful substances such as uric acid from the kidneys. In addition, they eliminate inflammation and have a diuretic effect.
For many, watermelon is a favorite treat on the table in the fall. And spores, a fruit, or a berry, or even a vegetable, subside during this period, since the taste is unsurpassed and unique. In addition, it saturates the body with useful substances for a long period.That is why many people love and appreciate him so much.
The difference between watermelon and ordinary berries
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Watermelon is distinguished from other berries:
- large hard bones;
- thick, hard peel, which, unlike other berries, is problematic to eat even if you have such a desire;
- large size and weight. The average weight of a watermelon varies from 5 to 10 kg, but individual record holders can grow up to a centner and even more.
Features of growing melons and gourds
Watermelons grow on neutral sandy soils... It is a drought-resistant plant, but consumes a lot of water during the growth period. Dry or moderately humid air, together with abundant watering of the soil, is the basis for a sweet harvest. The more humidity and less sun, the more watery and fresh the fruits will turn out.
Watermelon seeds remain viable for up to 10 years... Planting is carried out in the ground when the soil has warmed up to a depth of 10 cm. After germination, the seedlings are thinned out, leaving the strongest shoots at a distance of about 1 m from each other.
Watermelon seedlings can be watered once a week, but abundantly (3 buckets per 1 m² of soil). At the time of flowering, watering becomes more frequent up to 2 times a week. During the ripening of the fruits, watering is stopped.
Attention! Plants do not tolerate the cold. When the temperature drops to +15 ° C, they are covered in 2 layers: gauze (to collect condensate) and a film (for insulation).
If the weather is not happy with sunny days during flowering, insects stop pollination of plants. In this case, artificial pollination is carried out by touching the pistils of several other flowers with the stamens of one flower.
Read also: How to propagate Japanese spirea
To get larger fruits, remove the tops of the shoots, then the plant starts up its forces on branching and the formation of fruits.
Signs that unite watermelon with other types of fruits
Watermelon is combined with:
- fruit - the presence of pulp and peel. Almost all the usual fruits grow on trees, and the fruits of a watermelon ripen on the ground;
- berries - the presence of seeds and pulp, although many experts insist on calling the watermelon a false berry because of its solid size and tough peel;
- vegetables - perhaps only eating, there are no other similarities. Although some chefs make delicious preparations for the winter from watermelon, which are not inferior to the usual cucumbers and tomatoes.
Briefly about the history of watermelon
The real homeland of watermelon is Africa. The ancestor of the modern watermelon is considered to be the wild colocynth from the African deserts. This plant has a powerful root system and small nondescript bitter fruits. Legends say that among these fruits there were also sweet ones, they helped caravans to overcome great distances through the deserts. It was because of them that the domestication of the colocynth began.
On the South American continent, there is another variety of wild watermelons - citron watermelon. Most modern varieties originate from this species. The first mentions of the cultivated varieties of this tasty fruit can be found in the hieroglyphs that adorn the walls of Egyptian temples.
Despite the lack of external similarity, this fruit is a relative of cucumber, pumpkin and zucchini. The common watermelon is an annual herb belonging to the Pumpkin family.
Did you know? The Türkic name "donkey cucumber" is due to the fact that donkeys are very fond of eating watermelons and often raid melon.
Features of the composition and useful properties of watermelon
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Watermelon is a low-calorie product, 80% consists of water, contains many vitamins, pectin, potassium, iodine, phosphorus, magnesium, cobalt, fluorine. Thanks to such an impressive set, we can safely say that he is not just a berry, but a miracle berry. He came to us along the Great Silk Road and took root on the Volga coast.At first, it was grown only in warm regions (Astrakhan region, Kuban), but later the culture spread to Central Russia and is even successfully grown in the northern regions. The most important property of pumpkin is its diuretic effect, which, accordingly, has a beneficial effect on the functioning of the kidneys and urinary tract. In the treatment of cystitis and urethritis, watermelon is used in adjuvant therapy. With reasonable use, this berry can be enjoyed even by people with diabetes mellitus. Fiber helps to remove all unnecessary from the body, and choleretic properties make the use of watermelon useful for cirrhosis, cholecystitis and help to normalize the digestive tract after poisoning. Watermelon helps to improve the condition of blood vessels: if you eat it regularly during the season, you can lower cholesterol levels. The high vitamin B9 content helps to maintain the natural beauty of nails and hair. Well, there is no need to say that juicy red pulp is ideal for quenching thirst in the summer heat. Something better is not invented and created neither by man nor by nature. And it is unlikely to be.
The best varieties of watermelons
Having figured out that watermelon is not a fruit or a vegetable, but a false berry, you can now try to grow this wonderful fruit on your own plot without chemicals and other pesticides. And the most important thing in this business, of course, is to choose the best early varieties of watermelon that can be planted not only in the Urals and Siberia, but also in the Kuban.
Of course, according to the reviews of many summer residents cultivating watermelons in their summer cottage, as well as at home on the balcony, the most delicious and best is the Ogonyok watermelon variety, grown in Soviet times. Delicious and sweet, with small fruits, it is great for a garden on the balcony, and grows on a garden bed without much difficulty, since it is unpretentious.
If you like yellow melon, then pay attention to the Lunny watermelon - the fruits are yellow inside, tasty and juicy, besides, they ripen early. If you want to grow a hybrid, then you can take note of Sprinter F1, Red Star F1, Profi F1 and others.
Now you know that watermelon is a berry or a fruit, and you can easily give an answer to this question, well, if suddenly someone asks you!
Lunar watermelon
Pumpkin is a berry or vegetable
Let's try to understand this question: a pumpkin is a berry or a vegetable. Deciding to create a carriage for Cinderella, the fairy chose one of the largest fruits in the world - a pumpkin. Botanists rightly believe that pumpkin is a berry! They found a special term for berries of this size - pumpkin. The homeland of various types of pumpkins is the tropics of Asia, Africa and America, where these herbaceous plants with a creeping stem are found in the wild. Pumpkin has been cultivated since time immemorial, porridge is cooked from its pulp, mashed potatoes and even jam are made, fried and stewed, and its seeds are also eaten. In our country, a large common (kitchen) pumpkin is grown from Mexico. There are small pumpkins, for example a turban pumpkin: a white "head" in a red "turban".
In the minds of many, the berry is small and round. But botanists, defining the types of fruits, refer to berries and such a "non-berry" fruit as a banana. Under a dense peel in the flesh of a banana, seeds are hidden - black dots. In addition to the usual sickle-shaped yellow banana, longer and thinner, oval, and almost round bananas, not only with yellow, but also with red peel, are grown on plantations. Not all bananas are sweet - many are cooked like vegetables: fried and baked with meat.
Lagenaria
In the tropics of all continents, different types of lagenarius pumpkins grow. The spicy bitter pulp of unripe lagenarius is edible. In a ripe fruit, the shell becomes hard and waterproof, and the pulp inside dries up, turning the fruit into a hollow vessel - the dishes are ripe! In different species of Lagenaria, pumpkins are large and small, round, oval, pear-shaped, bottle-shaped, elongated.From ancient times, people have been making bottles, flasks, smoking pipes, baby rattles, musical instruments from them. The calabash tree (gourd) from South America, unrelated to pumpkins, also presents people with convenient dishes. Its fruits, when ripe, become thick-walled and hollow.
The most popular gourd products are a round vessel for Indian mate drink and musical maracas rattles.
Why is it called so
The word is of Persian origin arbza, which means melon or large cucumber. Then it migrated to the Turkic language - arbz. This is how it got its modern name.
Watermelons can be of different shapes: oval and spherical. They also take on whatever shape the gardener wants to give them, for example, a heart or other shape. Square became popular in Japan, but, unfortunately, they did not have time to ripen. Then they began to be sold as souvenirs.
Archaeologists have discovered in the Egyptian pyramids on the inscriptions the oldest image of a watermelon. Most of them believe that his homeland was the Nile Valley. The fruits, along with household items, were brought to the tombs. The Egyptians believed that the departed could enjoy them in the afterlife.
An unusual variety is grown in India. Moss is placed at the bottom of the reservoir, then silt. Young plants are planted in it. As a result, the fruits reach incredibly huge sizes. Collect them from boats.
Today, the largest watermelons are grown in Iraq. They have an elongated shape, and their length reaches about 1.5 m. In Russia, they are massively grown in the Volga region, in the Urals. But the center of cultivation of culture is the Astrakhan region.
Chemical composition
Watermelon is very useful because it is rich in various vitamins and minerals. At the same time, it contains the minimum amount of calories: only 38 kcal per 100 g of pulp. At the time of ripening, the edible part of the fruit contains mainly glucose and fructose. Sucrose appears during storage. The longer the watermelon lies, the more it accumulates. The pulp contains from 5.5 to 13% of easily digestible sugars.
The fruits contain the following vitamins: A, B1, B2, B5, B6, B9, C, K, PP. Also, the pulp is rich in trace elements such as iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, sodium, selenium, phosphorus, fluorine, zinc. 100 g of watermelon contains 0.61 g of protein, 7.55 g of carbohydrates, 0.15 g of fat, 0.4 g of dietary fiber.
Thanks to such an abundance of useful microelements, the striped "ball" becomes an indispensable product on the table. It is not only possible to eat it, but also necessary. A large amount of water helps to saturate the body with moisture, which is especially important in the summer heat.
