Watermelon Woe!

Between 6 and 7 am every morning (except that rare occasion when it rains!), I get up to water my garden. As I water I check for fruit, pests, escaping vines and weeds. This daily routine creates unusual feelings of intimacy between me and some of my fruit and vegetables, usually the slow-growing ones that I check over for cracks, spots, and bugs. One such fruit that I felt particularly close to was a watermelon that was beautiful. I checked its growth with daily admiration!

My soil is new and not the best. I will be amending it over time, but for now I have very small, but sweet fruit. With this in mind, I kept my eye on my prize watermelon. I turned it, examined it, and thumped it. Finally the day came to harvest it!!! With excitement I clipped the vine, already tasting the sweet pink goodness in my mind. I secretly put the watermelon in the refrigerator to chill for dessert!

After dinner when I cut the watermelon I was shocked to see that it was unripe! I had picked my precious watermelon too early! What to do? I couldn't just toss it into the compost pile. I decided to taste it; it tasted like a slightly sweet cucumber. I cut it to try it in a salad with ranch dressing. It was very good!

Even though I was disappointed to not taste sweet goodness, the watermelon was pretty good as a cucumber and I saved it from the compost pile!

A ripe cantaloupe: just one of my tiny ripe fruit!

Watermelon salad!