Watermelon

A gift of seed packets earlier in spring was a great way to begin spring gardening. Among them, there was a packet of watermelon seeds and I decided to give it a try. Reading up about how to grow watermelons was helpful and I learned that the plant loves heat, grows vigorously, and it should be given enough space to spread. I planted it close to the sunflowers. It could grow into the flower bed and it would be easy to keep an eye on it.

The seeds germinated and started to grow in about 2 weeks. I gave away two seedlings to friends because all my seeds germinated, and I had a surplus. Soon, the vine began to grow. I was trying to guide it to grow on the right side, but it had a mind of it's own. After several failed attempts at guiding it, I gave up and it continued to grow to the left, taking support of a metal trellis.

A few days later, however, another seedling decided it would follow the support I had provided on the right side and began to grow in the flower bed under the sunflowers. There were pretty yellow flowers soon enough. This one below is a male flower.

This one below is a female flower with the bulbous base.

When the female flower is successfully fertilized, it begins to form a fruit. This year, there was very little rain in June and well into July. So many weeks without rain made the temperatures shoot up to hover around a hundred degrees Fahrenheit . There were lots of flowers on the plant but none got fertilized. This one finally did in August, when it rained some and temperatures were a little cooler, from the upper nineties to the lower nineties. That helps. This one below was the first to form a fruit. 

I placed a cardboard under the growing watermelon to protect it from ants and other critters in the soil. It was soon a little larger than a fist.

In the next 2-3 weeks, it was the size of a soccer ball, maybe slightly smaller than that. I wasn't quite sure when it was ready to be picked. I tried to tap on it, but it was hard to tell. A little tendril just above the fruit was beginning to get dry and I had read somewhere that when it does that, the fruit is ready to be picked.

Maybe watermelon love heat, but I don't think that means Texas heat.
So far, this is the only fruit I got this year. However, what it couldn't give in numbers, it made up for in taste. It was very sweet, and though small, we loved having it for a snack.