Carosello "Leccese Light Green" Cucumber
Carosellos just might be your new favorite vegetable. They are eaten like cucumbers--the mildest, juiciest, most digestible cucumber you ever tasted, with a slightly sweet aftertaste. They are technically a melon, and have none of the compounds that can make cucumbers bitter or hard to digest. They have been grown and enjoyed in Italy for centuries, and come in several shapes, sizes, and colors. This variety is from the area around Lecce, in the "heel" of Italy. It is dependable, high-yielding, and delicious. Because you're picking them immature, you can pick them really, really soon. They need hot weather, but given that, they are ready very early. Full of electrolytes and gels, they are hydrating and restorative.
These are used in all the usual ways we eat cucumbers--in salads, marinated, pickled, as a raw snack, and so on. In addition, Italians use them as a first course to a meal, with or without a salty accompaniment like olives or salami. Botanically, they are melons. Over the centuries they have been bred to be picked when immature, just as a zucchini is a squash meant to be picked when immature. They are easy to grow, very early, prolific, and great-tasting. What more could you want? (The mature melons are mushy and bland, good mostly for pickling, jam, or feeding to livestock. Again, like zucchini.) Rare. 20 seeds