Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Watermelon!

We planted watermelon when we first built our vegetable garden. Our vines had been doing great the whole while, but they never produced! I thought about turning under the vines or composting them and planting something more productive but that seemed like such a waste! We know these vines can last a while, so we thought we might just keep them around and see what happens. I started taking a Q-tip to the flowers when we started Q-tipping our pumpkin flowers.
Q-tipping the flowers totally worked! Here are two itty bitty watermelons.
(Dimly circled, click to enlarge)
And here's a bigger one-
And here's a whopper!
Guess it pays off to add just a little bit of help. We don't see too many bees in the yard, so that may be why we're having to pollinate these plants ourselves. Weird, because there's a ton of lantana growing right next to our garden and our jalapeno has been doing great without our help. Picky pollinators, I guess. Keep checking back for updates as these little guys grow! We've noticed three little guys so far but there are over 20 flowers on the plant so we expect to see many more!

2 comments:

  1. Ah, the Q-tip lets you pollinate them. I was wondering why you were Q-tipping! This is so exciting! I love your garden and am jealous of your bounty! (But in a good way!)

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  2. It's like watching water balloons slowly fill up with water. :)

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