Watermelon Time

[Bird]

94 degrees again today; hate hot weather. But there are a few bright spots. Had the first cold, sweet, juicy, yellow meated watermelon from my little patch today. In fact, I think I'll just go eat another plate full./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[Kevin_mc]

Bird - how about a few blackberries to go with that watermelon. Picked about 2 quarts today. We're having the hot/humid weather also.

I've never had yellow meated watermelon. What's it like? How big do they get? Many seeds?

Kevin

 

[jyoutz]

Bird, for the first time I planted some yellow watermelon this year-variety called desert gold. I don't know how they'll work out. Right now my melons are golf ball sized. They never ripen at my location until mid-Sept.

 

[Bird]

Kevin, when we were traveling all the time, we picked blackberries and made jelly in Oregon in August one year, but my blackberries are usually through for the year about mid-June. My little patch produces about 50 quarts a year, but this year the grasshoppers were so bad that I think my wife only put up about 20 quarts before I mowed the vines down in early June.

There are a lot of varieties and sizes of yellow meated watermelons, just as there are with the red ones. I've just always been partial to the yellow; maybe my imagination, but they just seem a little sweeter and better flavor. The seeds are similar to the red ones, except red watermelons usually have black seed and the yellow ones have brown with just a black tip. I like to try different things, just to see what they do, so this year I planted "TS" seeds and the watermelon I was eating yesterday was about 20" long, maybe half as wide, but I didn't weigh it.

Bird

 

[Kevin_mc]

Thanks Bird - I'll keep those watermelon in mind when we prepare the garden seed list on New Years Eve.
Kevin

 

[RobertN]

My favorite is taking those blackberries and making homemade icecream! I have a good no-cook recipe that is really good. On our old property, we used to pick those berries fresh and whip up a batch. Good eating!

RobertN in Shingle Springs Calif

 

[Bird]

We haven't made homemade ice cream in several years now (got lazy I guess), but I do occasionally make myself a blackberry milkshake, and like them in a bowl of cereal and cobblers, plus the fact that the blackberry jelly is my favorite jelly. I just don't like pickin'em./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Bird

 

[W5FL]

Bird, I have many beautiful cantalopes coming on now. I didn't even try watermellons this year. I cannot see for the life of me why cantalopes would do so well and watermellons don't. There must be a secret ingredient and I haven't found it yet.

 

[Kevin_mc]

RobertN - Would you consider posting the recipe for that blackberry ice cream. You just made it sound too good and we still have a lot more berries to pick.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[Bird]

Wen, I'm afraid I don't know the secret to raising watermelons either. Some years I have good ones, some years (like last year), nothing worth eating. Of course, I figured part of my problem might be trying different types of seed to see what they do, instead of staying with what's been good in the past, and then I read a couple of years ago about watermelon farmers being concerned because of too much rain; said too much water keeps them from being sweet enough. I watered less this year than I ever have, and have good melons. However, while the cantaloupe taste good, they're not only an odd color, but medium to very small sizes this year.

Bird