The formal name for this veggie family is Cucurbitaceae – try saying that three times fast! Most gardeners call it the Cucurbit or the cucumber family. While this family does not include just cucumbers, see below for some of the members:
Veggies:Â Â Cucumbers, summer squash (yellow squash and zucchini), winter squash (acorn, blue hubbard, butternut, delicata, spaghetti and sweet dumpling squash), pumpkin, gourds, zuchetta
Fruits:Â Watermelons, cantaloupes and honeydews
Similarities: These veggies and fruits are definitely warm season lovers and have male and female flowers. It is helpful if you grow a several of each type/variety so you get enough male and female flowers for pollination. You can rely on the bees or do some hand pollinating. If you take a look at the flowers on a particular plant in the cucurbit family, you will notice that some of the flowers have straight stems which are the male flowers and some stems are chubby and appear to have immature fruit growing which are the female flowers.  There are some nasty bugs such as the squash vine borer, the squash beetle and the cucumber beetle that are in love with the cucurbit family. These veggies and fruits have flat seeds.
Differences:  Cucumbers, summer squash and the fruits listed above have softer, thinner and edible skin so they don’t store as long as compared to the hard shells of the rest of the veggies in the cucurbit family.  While summer squash grows in a bush form, the rest of the cucurbit family vines which makes the rest of this family a good candidate for vertical gardening.
If you missed my article on the Brassica Plant Family , just click on it.
