Southern Balsam Pear – 5 Seeds

Southern Balsam Pear (Momordica balsamina) is a climbing annual to perennial native to the tropical regions of Africa. The plant can grow up to 5 meters long. Its stem is thin, angular and slightly hairy. The leaves are bright green and the flowers are pale yellow, cream or white, darker at the base, often  deeply veined. The plant produces edible fruits that are ovoid to ellipsoid in shape, with a bulge in the center. The fruits are orange to red when ripe.  When ripe, the fruits burst apart, revealing seeds covered in a red, extremely sticky coating.

Common names: Southern balsam pear (Eng.); laloentjie (Afr.); mohodu (Sotho); nkaka (Thonga); intshungu, intshungwana yehlathi (Zulu), Balsam apple, Balsamgurka, Mokhaa, Chhochhidan, and African Pumpkin.

Culinary Uses:

• The leaves and green fruit are cooked and eaten as spinach, sometimes with groundnuts, or simply mixed with porridge.
• The raw ripe fruits are also eaten.

PLEASE NOTE: Unripe, green fruits should not be eaten as contains a resin, toxic alkaloids and a saponic glycoside that cause vomiting and diarrhea.

Medicinal Uses:

• Used as an application to treat burns, chapped hands and feet, external sores, frostbite, hemorrhoids, headache, and as a purgative.

Growing Balsam Pear

Indoor Sowing: Late Winter / Early Spring.

Direct Sowing:  Spring and Summer.

• The plants prefer full sun, warm days and nights, and a trellis as a single vine can grow 5m long.
• Soak seeds overnight before planting. Pour very warm water in a jar and drop the seeds in there, allow to soak overnight, then plant the next day.
• Seeds can be sown in Spring or Summer.
• Sow the seeds about 3mm deep in good potting soil or in a composted hill of garden soil.
• Keep the soil moist and very warm until germination.
• Thin or transplant to 3 plants per hill and space hills 6 feet apart.