just one watermelon

Josiah decided in early June that he wanted to plant some seeds.

Tyler, being the great pop that he is, took 'Siah to the hardware store

to buy seeds.

They came home with Big Max pumpkin and Crimson Sweet watermelon seeds and some dirt.

And some Miracle Grow, which I was not to be told about,

but of course, I'm not as dumb as I look,

and knew about it anyways.

He was just trying to up the kid's chances of success.

About 2 days after they planted the seeds, Tyler took the kids camping,

so it was up to me to keep the seeds alive.

I faithfully watered them and sent multiple texts with horrible pictures of the seeds sprouting.

The pumpkin started out with a bang

and the flowers were huge.

He got 3 tiny pumpkins,

then they died at the blossom end just like our yellow squash does,

and no more pumpkins ever turned up.

The watermelon started considerably slower,

but for the past several weeks has taken over a good bit of the front yard.

We've lost count of all the baby watermelons.

And there are still hundreds of flowers out there.

As the watermelons have grown though,

something has happened to 'em.

Some of then just split clean open, but mostly, the chickens have eaten them.

Poor kid.

It was looking like all of his work tending his plants was going to amount to nothing.

But there was one watermelon, quietly growing quite large,

quite unnoticed.

After we discovered it, I'd cover it back up with the vines after checking on it

in an attempt to keep it safe from the chickens,

and more than once Josiah has stood out there by it,

shooing them away and yelling at them to leave his watermelons alone!

We googled 'how to tell when a watermelon is ready to be picked'

then kept an eye on the spoon leaf and the tendrils.

But then we couldn't find the nearby tendrils....

I didn't want him to pick it too early, but if we waited too long, it'd be yuck, too.

Plus, the chickens might get it.

We finally decided it was time.

He could barely lift it ~ that watermelon weighed 25 lbs!

I wish I could say it was the sweetest, yummiest watermelon ever grown.

But it wasn't.

We should have left it longer...

It had a pleasant flavor, if not as sweet as it should have been, though,

and it was edible.

For that, I'm grateful.