Last edited on November 30, 2025. View history
Bitter Melon
Bitter Melon
How to sow bitter melon: Direct seed indoors, transplant seedlings outside after hardening off.
Sun requirement for bitter melon: Plant in Full Sun
Bitter melon is a tropical and subtropical vine in the Cucurbitaceae family. It can be grown like cucumbers, but needs at least 3-4 months of warm to hot and humid weather for fruits to develop and mature. Fruits have a warty exterior and oblong shape with tapering ends and a bitter taste. They are usually eaten cooked when young. As the fruits age, the skin becomes tougher and less edible, but the pith becomes sweet and intensely red and is often used raw in salads. The fruit turns orange and mushy and splits when it is fully ripe. Bitter melon is used in Ayurvedic medicine and eaten as a treatment for malaria in some countries (it's bitter flavor is due to the melon's quinine content.) To aid germination, scarify and dunk seeds in boiling water for no more than four seconds, then drain on a paper towel for a few minutes before sowing. Plants should be trellised to reduce disease and prevent the fruits from rotting on moist soil.
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Bitter melon facts
Lifespan
Row Spacing
40cmCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For bitter melon, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 15°C and a shortest growing cycle of 50 days at its best temperature, about 550 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your bitter melon will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
How members grow bitter melons
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Where bitter melons grow
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Who's planted bitter melons
- howell289 Howell's Garden · Bacoor Cavite...
- corvi stone hill plot · salt spring island
Bitter melon harvests
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Time to harvest
If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 50 to 70 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Momordica charantia L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Dilleniidae Violales Cucurbitaceae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 3 °C, rest: 3 °C |
| Life form | herb, vine |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | climber/scrambler/scadent |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, organic |
| Optimal soil fertility | moderate |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours) |
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