Remember my last set of wintermelons that didn’t survive? Mummy chopped them all off in the hope that we’d get new ones. We did. Here they are, after this afternoon’s storm.
Gen 2 Wintermelons
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Tag Archives: Wintermelon
New Wintermelons
Novice Gardener gave us wintermelon seeds from her productive aunt. We were very happy, and excited, because these vines grew faster than a speeding bullet (Mummy said Ferrari, but that is very unkind). Then for the very first time in our Boy Garden, more girl flowers came out than boys!
Mummy carefully shared the pollen from the boy flowers around. All the baby melons had a growth spurt!
Then they stopped. Here they are. Have a look. They are all gone cases.
See how droopy this one is? And if you look carefully, you are see that there are ridges on the flower end of the melon. That’s a bad sign.
Now this was the first of the wintermelon babies. It is now about 10cm long. And it has stopped growing. If you look closely, you can see it’s getting lighter on the flower end. Then look carefully on the stem end – see the ridge? No good.
This is probably the only one that may make it, although it has not grown for 2-3 days. Look at the stem end. See the slight shrinking? That’s a bad sign too.
So you see, slow and steady does win the race! These speeding wintermelons are fakes!
Look at the Colony on our Wintermelon Plant
Obituary of a Good Wintermelon
We don’t know what happened to our first 2 wintermelon plants. On Sunday morning they were all fine. There was one strapping 1.14kg wintermelon on one vine, and a baby wintermelon (2″ long) on each of the other vines.
By Sunday evening this was their sad state. Mummy has pulled them out because she cannot bear to see them like that.
Wintermelons are Like People
They come in all shapes and sizes.
Now we have the Mummy-shaped wintermelon (right):
We finally have the model-shaped wintermelon (below). We also have another, almost model-shaped wintermelon, but I forgot to take its photo.
Normal Shaped Wintermelon
Novice Gardener and me have been having a wintermelon beauty parade, comparing the shapes of our wintermelons. Novice Gardener had the pear and banana shaped wintermelons, and I had the big-headed wintermelons.
Finally, finally, we have a normal shaped wintermelon. Isn’t it a lovely shape?
Springmelon
Can you compare this, to the twins that I posted about earlier? Mummy decided to help our neighbour prune the unruly vines growing into her yard. Somehow she managed to chop off the vine on which the twin wintermelon was growing. I was very angry but Mummy said sorry.
Godma said the chopped off twin is not a wintermelon, it’s a springmelon!
Wintermelon Twins
Mummy and Godma are twins. But they cannot agree on who the evil twin is and who the good twin is. Our new wintermelon vines have produced twins on our side of the fence too, look!
And on the other side of the fence, growing on the same vine, is their third twin! (Oops I forgot to take a photo)
Unfortunately the twin on the left was attacked by a mean caterpillar. Here it is.
Bad Examples
Mummy often says crossly to The Big Sister that she is setting a bad example for me. Sometimes she also says crossly to me that I am setting a bad example (I am not sure to whom though?).
Anyway, our new wintermelon plants have learned disobedience from Curious Gardener’s plants. See? They are leaning to the right, and moving in on the pumpkins’ trellis!
Wintermelon 2 was Harvested Today
It did not grow much bigger and started feeling a bit squishy. And its vine stem was quite brown and dry. So we harvested it and removed the plant it was on (all shrivelled up). I was so worried that it was rotting (because it was squishy) that I hurried to cut it open and forgot to measure and weigh and photograph it. Mummy weighed it in bits and pieces and it totalled 510g. Nothing like Curious Gardener’s Little Monster!
Just for the record. It was still a big headed, small bottomed shape when harvested!
And we’re having soup tomorrow.
Growing Like a Weed 