grow, marvel, eat, laugh, persevere

Friday, August 24, 2007

We've Got Melons! Part Deux

This the first Watermelon. It's the Sugar Baby variety. As usual, I had no clue if it was time to harvest this thing. A while back I had done a baseline thump test and when I thumped this melon 2 days ago, it definitely seemed way different from the baseline thump. I had read on the internet that I should wait until the stem part started to dry out before harvesting but the stem was still green as ever tonight. The decision maker for me was that the tag said 80 days and since I harvested my Cantaloupe several days ago and it's tag said 88 days, I decided to go for it.


I was not very impressed with this melon. BUMMER! On a scale of A+ to F with A+ being the awesome delicious Cantaloupe I harvested the other day and F being any gag reflex inducing Brussel Sprout my mother ever made me eat, I'd give this a B-. It could be that I made a mistake by harvesting it right after all the rain we've had over the last week. Maybe that made it less sweet?

I think I'll wait until the stem drys out before harvesting the other one. If it doesn't taste way better than this one I'll definitely choose another variety next year. I'll grow Watermelon again for sure because I love the way the leaves look, but I need way more flavor than this to justify what a space hog this plant is.

3 comments:

  1. The melon looks beautiful. Too bad it didn't taste as good as it looks. I truly think watermelons are tricky to guess how they will taste. Maybe waiting a while will help - they seem to need long growing seasons no matter what the package says.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A B-? It looks better than that. I guess watermelons are like books... covers can be deceiving, it is what is inside that counts.
    Hopefully the 2nd melon will be better. They are garden space hogs, for sure, and definitely have to be VERY GOOD in exchange for all the space they take.

    Carol at May Dreams Gardens

    ReplyDelete
  3. Funny, my step-son was just telling me today about sugar baby watermelons -- someone brought us one for our picnic and I guess I don't know my melons because I had never heard of it before. Sorry yours didn't taste as good as you had hoped.

    ReplyDelete