Here lies a watermelon with the hope of a family resting on it - the hope that we will manage to let it ripen without picking it too early! This is the last one in its bed that's almost ripe and we are watching it very carefully. There have already been three casualties...
The first one was at my own hand. There are a few signs to look for when testing ripeness of watermelons - and it's best to make sure they're all there before proclaiming the fruit ripe as they do not ripen off the vine... It sounded hollow and the skin underneath had turned yellow, so I decided to harvest it... but I hadn't checked its pigtail, which is where it joins the vine. This has to be brown. Unfortunately I read this part after the early harvest. Casualty number one.
The next sad watermelon tale was of an accidental harvest. Someone (who shall remain nameless - and it really wasn't me) decided to check if the watermelon had turned yellow underneath. Whilst turning it over, the pigtail snapped off and we had casualty number two.
A day later, Joe and I and the kids went to do our usual weekend harvest. Joe and I were looking at the corn, when all of a sudden Tom appeared, proudly cradling a watermelon in his arms - casualty number three!
'Look what I found!' he said, delighted with himself.
Joe nearly dropped to the ground.
So he feels like putting a 24 hour guard on the last, nearly ripe watermelon in its bed. We are all fans and can't wait til it's ready. But we'll leave it up to Joe to decide next time. After all, he is the gardener!
1 comment:
That's hilarious - who will get to eat it?
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