My first melon . . .

[Smart Red]

. . . . of the year! I've been watching the first melon on the vine slowly ripen. Kept checking the stem for slippage. It was spouse who directed my attention to one later to set fruit. Sure enough, that one was ripe and ready!

Spouse went to bed while I was tucking the chickens in for the night so the melon will have to wait until breakfast for tasting. If the weather cooperates, I should get another 6-9 melons before frost takes the garden.

 

[897tgigvib]

...eagerly awaiting the photos!

 

[digitS']

And, variety ID.



One of the Goddess melons showed up on a path yesterday, detached from the vine! They slip naturally when ripe but I'm just biting my lip every time I go into the sweet corn patch and see a stalk pushed to the ground - racoons! Not much sign that anything has even been "sampled" but I don't like the seasons when it has been a race to see if I can get things before they are set upon by bandits!

Steve

 

[canesisters]

How Exciting!! Can't wait to hear how it was (and what it was)

 

[jackb]

Great going, can't wait for the photos. We gave several away and still have a few to eat, but the patch is gone and we have our yard back.

JackB

 

[ninnymary]

Jack, you gave one away! I wanted one so badly. I just know you would have given me one if I lived next door!

Mary

 

[jackb]

Jack, you gave one away! I wanted one so badly. I just know you would have given me one if I lived next door!

Mary

Mary,

If you lived next door I would have Ava deliver it personally. She could bring her best friend Hannah and the three of you could engage in some girl talk.

JackB

 

[ninnymary]

Jack, I would LOVE to spend an afternoon with Ava and Hannah! Ava could teach me how to garden hydroponically. (Hope I spelled that correctly. )

I think I could even find that matching outfit to wear.

Mary

 

[Smart Red]

Sorry I can't do a photo. My camera seems to be toast and Best Buy suggests it can't be fixed because it is already THREE years old. Imagine! That's $100 a year for a few photos I haven't gotten off my computer.

I did serve the melon -- half of it anyway. The melon is named "Pride of Wisconsin".

" A fabulous Midwest heirloom introduced in 1937 by the Robert Buist Company. Heavy yields of football-shaped 4-8 pound muskmelons. Hardshelled with firm sweet flesh. Great old-fashioned flavor associated with roadside stand melons. If you can only grow one melon and do not want to be disappointed, this is the variety to grow. 90 days. "

" Open-pollinated. Welcome to melon nirvana, that rare moment of absolute perfection: the smooth texture and juicy refreshing sweetness that satisfy through and through with just the right delicate balance and no musky aftertaste. Move over, Minnesota! Pride takes its place alongside Golden Gopher as the best. Extremely high-quality large oval salmon-fleshed 57 lb. fruits have coarse netting and compact seed cavities. Edible all the way to the rind. Tends to crack at the blossom end during wet seasons. Not recommended for long-distance shipping. Known as Queen of Colorado when it was introduced in 1923 by the St. Louis Seed Co, good enough to have been claimed by more than one state. Widely offered in the 40s and 50s by the likes of Burpee and Eastern States Cooperative. All but disappeared from the trade after the onset of hybridization, maintained by just a handful of seed savers. "

Not the sweetest melon I've had, but the firm, sweet, juicy melon has a good texture. Cantaloup I can grow here. Have in the past with good success. Water melons are, as yet, beyond my abilities.

 

[jackb]

Red, it certainly sounds fantastic and that is too bad about your camera ; I know exactly how you feel about it. When I retired the company gave me a thousand dollar digital SLR as one of my retirement gifts. ( I guess they were that glad to see me go.) The first night I had the camera a friend was fooling with it spinning the dials and snapped the shaft off one of the controls. As the camera worked fine on automatic I just let it slide. Last year I wanted to do some serious time lapse photography and needed manual control, which was broken. When I contacted the manufacturer they told me the camera was five years old and they no longer fixed them, or had parts. Not giving up, I found a local guy in an obscure mall who has been fixing cameras for four decades. Long story short, he fixed it in three days. It cost me a hundred dollars, but the camera works great. The man told me that he thought it was an excellent camera, as it worked both automatically, and, you could make any manual setting to override the automatic and do some serious photography with it. I can't find a camera with those features on the market today, and I am so glad I had it fixed. The repair man told me a lot of parts from different cameras are interchangeable. Anyway, I am rambling, so enjoy your melons. Great job.

JackB