Useful cucurbits

Despite its length, we have thought it right to reproduce in full the excellent article on the cucurbits cultivated on this island which C. A. de Meneses, co-author of this Elucidario, published in an agricultural journal. It contains curious and interesting information that may be of considerable use to Madeiran farmers, since this group of plants is widely grown in every parish of the archipelago.

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The useful cucurbits grown on a large scale in Madeira are six in number, namely: the bottle gourd, the cucumber, the black squash, the Machado squash, the boganga and the chayote. Because they grow so quickly, need so little care and adapt so readily to the great majority of soils, all these plants are rightly prized by the island’s inhabitants, who find in their fruits a source of income and a substantial and abundant food for a good part of the year. Although these plants are known outside the country, we shall give some information about each of them, in order gradually to make known the principal products of Madeira and the methods adopted here in growing the various useful plants.

The bottle gourd (Lagenaria vulgaris), native to tropical Asia and Africa, is an annual, pubescent plant with soft, flaccid, musk-scented leaves and white, monoecious, star-shaped flowers. Botanists distinguish different varieties within this species, all based on the shape or size of the fruit, and the following three occur in Madeira: var. Gourda, with large fruits (30 to 60 centimetres), broader at the top than at the bottom and somewhat approaching the shape of an hourglass; var. pusilla, with fruits of the same shape but smaller (8 to 18 centimetres); and var. clavata, with very large fruits, which may exceed 1 metre in length and are generally club-shaped.

The gourds are used for soup and sometimes for preserves. Once ripe, thoroughly dried and properly cleaned inside, they can serve to hold liquids. Gourds are fit for this last use when, on being shaken, the seeds are found to be perfectly loose inside the fruit. The fruits of the pusilla variety are much used by country people to carry wine and brandy on pilgrimages.

The bottle gourd is propagated solely from seed, sown from January to March. Some farmers dig trenches, which they call caseiras, into which they drop the seeds and where only the plants worth keeping are left. Others simply dig small holes for the same purpose, but only when the soil has been worked some time before to receive some other crop. The plants remain in the very place where they come up, unless there is some advantage in transplanting them to a better spot because the soil has not been properly prepared, or for any other reason.

Layering is not practised with the cucurbit we are discussing, which needs trees, pergolas or some other supports to grow well. The fruits appear from September to October in each of the varieties we have described.

The cucumber (Cucumis sativus), a native of north-western India, has been known in southern Europe since remote times. In Madeira, where it is widely grown, it is sown in March and April, and in some places from January to May. Sowing is done in seedbeds (mantas or caseiras), in which only the plants to be kept are left standing. When these reach a certain size, cane trellises or other supports are built so that the stems do not trail along the ground. If sowing is done outside the seedbeds, it is best for the young plants to be transplanted with their clod of soil, a precaution that should also be taken with the other cucurbits found on the island when they undergo the same operation.

The species we are discussing is annual, like the preceding one. It is seldom layered, and it bears fruit from May to September. Madeiran cucumbers are oblong, large and sometimes slightly curved; their flesh is greenish and their skin turns yellow when ripe, so the plant belongs to the variety flavus.

The black squash (Cucurbita moschata), which seems to have originated in the East, is easily recognised by its very rough leaves, blotched with white and bearing 5 pointed lobes. Its large fruits, dark green and finally yellow, vary greatly in shape and have blunt longitudinal ridges, more or less pronounced.

This cucurbit is usually propagated by cuttings, or baraços as the Madeirans call them, which are generally planted in March and April in trenches or seedbeds (caseiras) of varying depth. The baraços are layered by bending them at the base and making them grow in the direction opposite to the one they had before. Propagation by seed is also practised, and the plants may either remain where they came up or be moved to a more suitable place. If the soil has been properly worked, trenches are sometimes unnecessary.

Black squashes, also known as Guinea squashes (aboboras da Guiné), are normally spherical, but there are also elliptical, obovate and pear-shaped ones (abobora cabeça, ‘head squash’), as well as club-shaped ones (abobora da rocha, ‘cliff squash’). In some of these fruits the ridges that characterise the typical form are only very slightly pronounced.

If it is true, as Madeiran farmers say, that the squash plants with pear-shaped and club-shaped fruits reproduce their characters from seed, they ought to be treated as a variety, rather than as mere variations of the spherical-fruited form, as we believe they have been regarded until now. Naudin’s Courge berbère or bédouine corresponds to the club-shaped form, while the Melonée or Courge muscade des Marseillais seems to correspond to the obovate form.

The black squash needs pergolas to grow well, but here and there we see it growing and fruiting without any support. When properly selected, it produces delicious fruits, which are eaten boiled in salted water when young, or in soup once fully grown. Yellow squash cooked with rice is a dish much enjoyed by Madeirans. Although the squash fruits mainly in September and October, it can be said that there is no shortage of squashes for the population from August to January.

As the squash is a monoecious plant, some farmers pollinate the female flowers by hand to increase the yield. Squashes intended to be eaten once yellow are picked when the yellowing is already clearly visible and placed in sunny spots. If care is taken to turn them every few days, they will keep for a long time.

The cucurbit we are describing is an annual, like the preceding ones, but it can exceptionally last two years without fresh layering, as we have had occasion to observe.

The Machado squash (Cucurbita Pepo), which is thought to originate from the Caspian Sea region, differs from the previous species in having leaves without white blotches and fruits with ten well-marked ridges. The Madeiran specimens belong to the artificial group created by Naudin, the Citrouilles proprement dites, which is characterised by large or medium-sized fruits that are ovate, obovate or elliptical.

This species is propagated solely by seed, which is sown from January to March. Only exceptionally are the plants layered. The fruits are most plentiful from August to October, and their flavour is much less pleasant than that of the black squashes.

The Machado squash, which some call Catôa, is rare in the low-lying parts of the island and only becomes abundant above 150 or 200 metres. It is grown in caseiras or outside them, and it grows among the cane plantations, over walls or supported on trellises. According to Brotero, the abóbora porqueira, the abóbora menina, the abóbora moganga and the abóbora chita or chilacaiota, cultivated in Portugal, are varieties of Cucurbita Pepo.

The bogangueira (cucurbita melanosperma), native to Asia and introduced from Tenerife in 1836 or 1837, is an extremely common species in both the north and the south of the island. Its leaves are 5-lobed, sometimes somewhat rough, with shallow, rounded lobes; its flowers are yellow and its fruits large and elliptical, without any ridges. Richard Thomas Lowe recognised two varieties of this species: the variety picta, with fruits speckled green and white, and the variety lactea, with entirely white fruits. The Madeirans call the fruits of the first variety bogangas rajadas (striped bogangas) and those of the second bogangas brancas (white bogangas).

The word boganga, from which bogangueira derives, is exclusively Madeiran and seems to be a corruption of moganga, a name applied in Portugal to a kind of squash. However, since the mogangas, as we saw above, are produced by Cucurbita Pepo, whereas the bogangas come from Cucurbita melanosperma, as we have also said, it seems to us that the Madeiran term should be accepted, since this avoids confusing species that are perfectly distinct from one another. In some parts of Madeira the bogangas are called abóboras moiras (Moorish squashes) and abóbora de Tenerife (Tenerife squash).

The bogangueira is very hardy. It is propagated by seed or by cuttings and can be grown in caseiras or in any other suitable place. It needs no supports, as it does perfectly well on the ground, but it requires layering, just like the black squash. It can be planted or sown all year round, but the best time for this is from March to October. The fruits are most abundant from June to November, but they also appear in other months of the year.

Boganga soup is considered an insipid food, or perhaps even unpleasant in taste, by the great majority of foreigners and of people from Portugal who visit the island. The inhabitants, however, and especially the lower classes, eat it with pleasure, above all when broad beans, beans or any other vegetables are added. The preserve that the Madeirans call chila (sweet made from gourd seed filaments) or chilacaiota is made from the filaments (funicles) of the seeds when the fruits are fully ripe.

The chayote (Sechium edule), caiota in Portuguese, is native to Central America and is the only perennial cucurbit grown in Madeira. It is monoecious, with glabrous stems, leaves rough on the upper surface and divided into 5–7 lobules, white, greenish-white or yellow flowers, and obovate or obovate-claviform fruits with a single seed, generally somewhat compressed. These fruits, known by the same name as the plant and also as pepinelas, are sometimes green and sometimes white, more or less prickly on the outside, and appear during the autumn and part of the winter. Their flavour is pleasant, especially in the green variety, and they can be eaten in soup or boiled in salted water; they are also made into a preserve very similar to that made from the boganga.

The chayote is propagated from whole fruits, which are planted in small pits in January and February. Some growers set them in their natural position, but more often they are laid in the ground on their side, or else with the shoot pointing downwards, because it is said that the root, which is tuberous and very rich in starch, then grows larger. This root, although edible, is little used in Madeira.

The plant we are discussing is better known on the island as pepinela than as caiota. In Central America and the West Indies it is given the latter name, and also that of chocho. Because the word pepinela, which is genuinely Madeiran, does not appear in dictionaries of the language, some people call the fruits of the chayote pimpinelas. This is plainly a mistake, since the pepinela belongs to the cucurbit family and the pimpinela to the umbellifers, and there are no affinities or similarities of any kind between the two plants.

The chayote seldom bears fruit in its first year, but from the second year onwards it fruits abundantly. In some cases it can live for more than 10 years, and it needs trellises or other supports to grow well. Before planting, the fruits are left to sprout, and it is customary to put them in the ground only when the stems have reached a length of 20 to 30 centimetres, and sometimes more. When the fruits are planted upside down, these stems should be bent so that part of them stays above ground.

Of the cucurbits we have mentioned, only the black squash is widely grown on Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’); there are, however, melons there, which are rare in Madeira, and watermelons, which are almost unknown on this island.

In some places around Funchal one finds Cucurbita Pepo aurantia, with spherical fruits resembling oranges, and a variety of Cucurbita maxima improperly called abóbora menina, which is characterised by small, flattened pepos of a very curious shape.

The bottle gourd, the cucumber, the two squashes and the boganga are always grown in ground that has been properly manured. Fold (curral) manure or brushwood is put into the trenches or beds, and only then are the seeds sown or the cuttings planted. The layering of the squash and the boganga, generally done two months after planting, is also accompanied by manuring.

Some farmers pinch out the main stems once they have reached a certain growth, in order to obtain stronger and more productive side branches. Third-order branches, known as netos (‘grandchildren’), are removed on a large scale, especially on squashes, to strengthen the plants and make them bear more fruit. On the cucumber this thinning is not always done, since some consider it harmful to the plant.

The black squash, the boganga and the cucumber are sometimes sown in unmanured ground, the manure being applied only at the time of layering. In species propagated by cuttings, these should be protected by coverings until they take root. Frequent watering is very useful during the hot season, but it can spoil the quality of the fruits as they approach ripeness. When two fruits appear close together on a squash branch, it is customary to remove one so that the remaining one grows more vigorously. The topping of fruit-bearing branches, however, is not practised on any Madeiran cucurbit; growers confine their care to removing useless shoots as they appear.

The chayote needs no manuring in the gardens of Funchal, but the same is not always true in the exhausted soils of the countryside. Once the pits have been fertilised, however, the plant can be said to need no further care, provided there are trellises or supports on which to spread its branches.