Out in the Garden

Wonderful Watermelon - Finally!

If you remember back about a month ago, we couldn't tell if our watermelon was ripe. We only had one big mellon but we thumped it, excitedly cut into it, and found out it was not yet ripe. I posted about it on August 14th titled, "How can you tell if a watermelon is ripe?". Finally almost a month later we got to enjoy ripe garden watermelon!

I can't really claim any success for this however. The watermelon patch got completely overtaken by weeds and we thought it was a complete loss. The girls were a bit disappointed, but at least we had delicious successful cantaloupe this year.

Anyway, the time has come to begin cleaning out the garden and getting it ready for winter. I started clearing out the watermelon/weed patch and much to my surprise, hidden amongst the weeds I found two small melons! This time they were ripe!

I guess the raccoons didn't know they were there either. It's quite possible that there are a couple more still hiding in the tall weeds. I plan to continue cleaning out the garden this week and weekend, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

Just because I'm ending the vegetable garden doesn't mean I'm ending this blog! I have several things still to write about concerning this year's gardening. Major topics I still want to cover are:

• What ever happened to the baby robins from my previous posts?
• Final observations on the many varieties of tomatoes grown.
• A neat garden oriented Father's Day gift I received.
• Yellow Eggplant?
• Plans for next year's garden.

So please stay with me for the conclusion of this year's growing season. I apologize for taking a few weeks off from posting. I will try to post regularly again.

Blessing to you all!

How can you tell if a watermelon is ripe?

No, that title is not the beginning of a funny little kids joke but it does sound like one. Actually that is kind of appropriate because my first harvested watermelon was a joke. it certainly was NOT ripe. I apparently do not know how to tell. Why am I telling you this? Two reasons: First, I wrote in my profile and on my first post "New Beginning" that I was going to blog about my garden successes and failures. Second, I thought that you could help me. Can anyone give me any tips on how to know when to pick a watermelon?

I thought I could tell by the sound it made when knocking on it. My daughters and I thumped our first Sugar Baby watermelon, thought it sounded right, excitedly picked it and put it in the refrigerator. Later, with much anticipation, we cut it open and found this:

Disappointment. It wasn't ripe yet. We tried to eat the middle anyway. I could tell that it would taste great if it were ripe.

I did some checking on the web and found a pretty good article about this written by Kenny Point on his site, veggiegardeningtips.com. Let me know what you think of his ideas, or if you have others.

If you're not familiar with the Sugar Baby variety of watermelon, you should try it. They are round and only get about 7 or 8 inches in diameter. They are really sweet (when ripe), and can be eaten by 1 or 2 people. We like them because of the small size and the fact that they don't take as much room in the garden to grow. Here is a picture of the vines growing next to a little decorative fence that Sarah made, and a picture of the melon next to a pint jar of pickles (to show you the size).

Once again, please let me know your secrets for telling when it is time to harvest watermelon. Thanks!

Help the Apple Tree!

This apple tree was a mess. It had become more and more crooked over the past few years. Finally it was time to do something about it! At least it didn't have a bird's nest in it like our peach tree from yesterday's post.

I was able to drive a stake and put some ties on it to hold it straight. These are the metal wire ties that go through a rubber tube. The rubber protects the tree from injury. I used to use clothsline, but the tree grew right around the clothsline and girdled itself. Be careful of that! Thats probably why I hesitated so long to fix these trees.

After I got the tree straight, I had another problem - the branches had adjusted the the leaning tree. Now that the trunk was straight, most of the branches were leaning to the left. I had to try to spread them back out so some will grow to the right. I would like to get some plastic limb spreaders, but until then, I used a second stake and some more wire/rubber ties. It works, but it aint pretty!

The limb spreaders I'm talking about can be found where trees are sold, but the ones I've looked at are from Stark Brothers, where I bought my trees. I have heard that they are stronger than most, and come in several lengths.

Please let me know if you have used limb spreaders and if you've had success with them. I'll let you know if I get them, but my make-shift spreaders are working for now.