Could be a Paddy Melon or one of these on the link below.
Cheers..MM.

Here is a link that might be useful: Paddy Melon

Thanks, Misty. It very much looks like a paddy melon. What a pity it's not edible!

Lucky to find them, they used to grow everywhere in the country.

Have you ever tasted Melon and Lemon Jam, one of the staples of a country kitchen in the older days.

I can remember coming acros a large patch and filling a trailer with the melons to take home to feed the pigs and chooks and hold some back for Mum to make the jam. Yummmm.
Here is a recipe from an old C.W.A. cookbook

PADDY MELON AND LEMON JAM
Take nine pounds melon, five pounds sugar and three lemons.
Peel and take the centre out of melon and cut into small squares, put into preserving pan and cove with the sugar and finely chopped sliced lemon rind.
Let stand overnight.
Boil up and when almost cooked add the juice of the lemons.
Ginger may also be added.

.

MELON AND PINEAPPLE JAM.
Four pounds of the peeled firm part of melon.
2 pounds of peeled cut up pineapple
three pounds of sugar.
Boil; the fruit three hours with half the sugar, then add the balance of sugar and boil one hour.

Wow, those recipes bring back memories. My Nan used to make those jams. I remember them from my childhood.

*rushes to bin to rescue paddy melons*

Had thrown them in the bin as I thought they were a weed and inedible and poisonous to stock and didn't dare put them in the compost bin??

Anyway, there are plenty of seeds. Would anyone like some? If you grow them and identify them correctly, that would be marvellous.

Send me an email, if you are interested.

According to the link to paddy melons above, they are poisonous. Beware!

My aunty Evie used to cook up paddy melon jam every year - while the spuds and the small area vegie garden wasn't growing (around Colleambally in the riverina)

I ate it, so unless it was a different variety of paddy melon I don't think there are any problems with it.

Too late! As I couldn't be sure that this melon was edible (no safe identification), I threw them in the bin. Better safe than sorry. Thanks all for your interesting contributions. :)

The way I read that article in that interesting link, is that the poisonous variety was the 'prickly paddy only 2cm in diameter', not the usual citrullis or pie melon. Pie Melon and Lemon jam used to be sold commercially for decades - unfortuneately it's disappeared, like the rosella jam which was also a commercial product. Anyway i'm back into the choko and yellow passionfruit jam again while they last.

Did you keep any seeds or is it possible to get some??

please email me at mrhoneycutt@internode.on.net

No seeds, sorry. As no definite (and safe) identification could be made I played it safe and threw everything away.

Sorry to dredge up an old post - these things grow wild in our paddocks (wimmera) - we call them b@stard melons! And when we were kids we used the prickly paddy melons for melon fights. Squeeze them between two fingers and they spray out seeds and pulp all over that annoying brother! Ah, those were the days.....