Watermelons Everywhere

Life goes on




fltsfshr

 

We had a volunteer watermelon vine that came up in the pea gravel bed beside the long side of our pool several years ago. I started to pull it as a weed until I realized what it was.

By the end of the summer, it had grown the entire 36' length of the pool and produced some of the best striped watermelons I have ever eaten.

I hope the Louisiana melons are a sign of a speedy recovery.

 

It sounds kind of funny but that's going to be a bad problem for anyone row crop farming around there. I can imagine what a watermelon vine would do to picker sheller or whatever kind of harvester they're using.

Probably lots worse than sunflowers.... There must be a farm boy on here somewhere with an opinion.

fltsfshr

 

I'm wondering about the condition of the soil and what may have washed over/into it. Would that be the responsibility of the parish, state, or some federal agency? I noticed in the article there was reluctance to partake of the volunteer fruit.

Whatever is/isn't in the soil, watermelons sure seem to like it.

 

Rick's an avid gardner. A couple of years ago, we bought our granddaughter a pumpkin and when Halloween was done Rick (at my suggestion) threw the pumpkin in a compost bin.

Well that turned out as he expected. The next summer, we had pumpkins growing where he placed the soil from the bin and where he didn't want them. We let them grow and my granddaughter was thrilled counting the pumpkins on the vine with each visit. We were up to 13 (small ones).

The vine started to die out so I told her we could pick the pumpkins. As it happened every one of them had been invaded by some kind of worm.

She took it very well and said to me very seriously "Papa's not going to be very happy."

Papa (Rick) took the news well and we went out to buy her a pumpkin at a local farm stand.