mediaOrganic » Watermelons

bountiful august harvest redux

john — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:27:55 +0000

As I walked through my kitchen it popped into my brain that I should post a photo of my counter top as it looks today. What this doesn’t show you are the additional tomatoes sitting off to the side in a basket, the many pounds of vegetables stuffed into my refrigerator, not to mention what remains in the garden waiting to be harvested. My greatest concern these days is conjuring up new ways to share this bounty with others before it decays into chicken feed. Especially since I know that in December and January I’m going to be pining for these heady August harvests.

watermelon sugarbabies

john — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:14:18 +0000

It’s mid-August and the tendrils on either side of these melons had dried up so I decided it was time to harvest them. For some reason, I’ve always preferred my watermelon with seeds. Perhaps it’s a sweeter flavor or perhaps the flavor is sweeter because it reminds me of the melons of my childhood. It’s impossible to tell from the picture but these melons are about 8 inches in diameter. Both of my girls were sweating their rear ends off at dance tonight so I surprised them each with their own mini melon. In the words of Emma — SWEET! And I have five more on the vine.

a nice pair of melons

john — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:28:13 +0000

The watermelons are coming along nicely. They are about the size of a large grapefruit and growing rapidly. All told there are seven of them.

Watermelons on the vine

john — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:29:27 +0000

Watermelons appear to be right on schedule. I found lots of male blossoms and multiple female blossoms and several baby melons are now growing. Sure wish I knew what variety I planted. Weather has been good for melons this week, mid-80s with moderate to high humidity and thunderstorms every three days or so. Rain barrels are full, life is good.

melon update

john — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:10:32 +0000

Just a few photos of our water and musk melons. Both are just waiting for the weather to get into the 80s. We’ve had a few warm days but mostly it’s been cooler and a little rainy. You can see the musk melons already have blossoms. Last year at this time most of my watermelons had been nipped off by either bunnies or cutworms. This year I made sure to put row covers over them until they were large enough to survive a few nips here and there.