Sunday 7 March 2010

melon!

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/melonripe1.JPGAbout Wednesday I noticed my first melon was starting to turn tan.  Seems like within 24 hours of noticing the colour change, it was this colour.  I lifted it slightly to have a close look and it came right off in my hand!  Turns out some kinds of melon make it very clear indeed that they're ripe.

It was a little split at the stem end.  I had been watering them a fair bit in the last few days and it seems that like the figs and tomatoes, they split when over-watered.  The worry was that the flavour would also be watered down.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/melonsliced.JPGI needn't have worried!  Two days later I had it for breakfast.  It looks over-ripe and look at how juicy it is.  The texture was a bit too mushy but the flavour was just right - beautifully sweet.  A lovely melon!  I saved some seed to plant next year.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/watermelonsfeb.JPGThere are only two more melons on the plant but I suspect that if I plant them on time next year I'll have plenty more.  In the meantime I have a few little watermelons growing too, I hope they ripen soon.  I might get a lot more fruit splitting though, we got 25mm of rain yesterday, as well as hail the size of marbles.  A seriously crazy storm.

http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/soybeanpod2.JPGThe soybeans on the other hand are still taking their sweet time.  I split one open to check but the beans are still too small to harvest.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow that looks so delicious, so much better than the supermarket ones!! Was it difficult to grow?

Alexa said...

The melons were pretty hardy, they got hit by spider mites but survived and now they've got powdery mildew but it seems many plants get that at this time of year. The watermelon in the tub isn't happy though, not sure if it's the watermelon or the pot.