Watermelon Time

Bird · Jul 9, 2000

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 · Jul 9, 2000

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 · Jul 10, 2000

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 · Jul 10, 2000

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 · Jul 10, 2000

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

RobertN · Jul 11, 2000

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 · Jul 11, 2000

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 · Jul 11, 2000

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 · Jul 11, 2000

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 · Jul 11, 2000

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