squash and cucumber side by side

Question

I planted squash and cucumber side by side and got a round fruit like a small melon. Looks like a small melon but tastes like a cucumber. I read an article that said it can’t happen, but it did. Any advice?

Answer 1

It can’t happen. Squash and cucumbers crossing is like cats and dogs breeding with each other. Genetically impossible.

That being said, cucumbers and melons are actually genetically close enough to cross, so that may be an offspring of that kind of crossing. But the crossing would have been with the plant that grew the seed that you planted. Crossing does not affect the fruit of the plant that gets cross pollinated, it affects that seeds of the plant that gets cross pollinated.

Still, even this is unlikely. More likely is you either have an under pollinated cucumber that came out round because all of the seeds did not develop or you have a sport. A genetic mutation. Since there are some varieties of round cucumbers out there, this is very possible too.