Watermelon Whisperer

I never understood the excitement gardeners had until this summer. My husband built a couple of raised gardening beds in our backyard and we began our journey to try and figure out this whole gardening thing.

We started small with some jalapeno peppers, yellow, red, and green bell peppers and watermelon. Out of all that, we gleaned only 1 jalapeno pepper....and it was the one that was already on the plant when we got it from the store. Yes, it was a disappointing first run.

Sure, it was the hottest summer on record in Texas, and there were the few times I forgot to water the garden, it was still a little deflating. It's ok though, my husband read that the fall growing season in northern Texas is actually one of the better times to grow things, so we tried again. We kept the watermelon, since it still looked like it was growing. We planted everything else by seed which included summer and winter squash, pumpkin, carrots, beans, sunflower, lettuce and a few other trial vegetables.

I noticed one day that the watermelon plant had what looked like a baby watermelon and a flower growing on it. I got very excited and showed my husband. Unfortunately nothing happened. Much to my disappointment, during the next few days, I watched the little guy wither and die.

I did some reading about watermelons and read that #1 there is a shortage of honey bees, so it could be a pollination problem and #2 excessive heat has a tendency to kill off pollen. Then I read up on ways to self pollinate, since that was something I knew I could help with. Next, I waited until another baby watermelon with a flower popped up.

It took a good 3 weeks for this to happen. This morning I looked out my back window after it had rained most of the night, and noticed that there were a few more yellow flowers growing on the watermelon plant than what I had considered "normal". I walk out there, carefully looking over each flower and YEAH! We have a "female flower"! (That's what they call the flowers with the baby watermelon underneath them.) As I talked to the plant excitedly telling it how I had waited and waited for a flower such as this I looked for a "male flower" (the flowers that don't have the baby underneath it) to speed along with the pollination process. I found a really good one who had a ton of pollen and pealed off the petals. I rubbed that pollen all over that female flower like there was no tomorrow! I kept saying, "I want you to be the biggest juiciest watermelon ever! So, come on now, be fruitful before the winter sets in!" As you can see, I really want a watermelon!

I ended up texting my husband the exciting news. I told him about my talking to that little flower and he texted back calling me the "watermelon whisperer". That's when it dawned on me that yes, if we actually get something edible out of this garden, I will enjoy this new hobby. So, we'll see. It is funny how excited gardeners get about their garden...it seems as though I may join this crowd.