As you may all recall, last spring I bought a watermelon seedling at a gardeners festival in Cambria because I thought it was funny that such a little plant could grow watermelons and, as the summer progressed, that little seedling turned into the Watermelon That Ate Cleveland -- growing to all corners of the garden and ultimately producing 10 watermelons in the 20-30-pound range (here's a photo photo from last September to give you a visual).
Naturally, I decided I should get a seedling from the same source for this summer's garden. How could I not? I'm still known in the garden as the gal who grows the watermelon (even the older couple two gardens down who don't speak English ask me about them).
This year. unfortunately, there was no festival going on in Cambria.
BUT, I had kept the information from the nursery that had been at the festival so took a little detour through Templeton (which is near Paso Robles) on my drive down the coast from Big Sur last week and found the nursery, Nature's Touch Nursery & Harvest. (You can find them online at http://www.ntnah.com/)
The nursery was actually smaller than I expected (especially since the watermelon had been bigger than I expected) but they did carry a selection of watermelon seedlings. Most stated they were in the 3-5 pound category so obviously were not the one I'd grown. I finally found a heirloom from Iowa that fit the description that's called the Criss Cross Watermelon and is supposed to run 15-20 pounds (obviously mine had been overachievers) and also found an heirloom called the Chilean Black described as very rare: "A pre-1910 heirloom that is striped and nearly round.) Interesting, right? So I bought both. I also got one of the Iowa heirlooms for my friend Trisha (who said she had the room), so it will be fun to compare notes.
A word about trying to harvest the seeds. I did try to harvest last year's seeds. Unfortunately, I did not dry them as thoroughly as I was supposed to so when I went to open the container I'd been keeping them in a hazy fog came drifting out of the container. Mold. Very creepy. So the lesson is that if you want to try to harvest the seeds from your watermelons, make sure they are very very very dry before putting them in a container.
So the seedlings went into the ground last Sunday, May 3, to be exact, and this is what they look like -- they're the two little green nubs in front of the trellis, with the Criss Cross heirloom on the left side (lower on the photo) and the Chilean Black on the right/upper. Will they become the watermelons that ate Cleveland (plural, now that I have two -- actually more than two because I have also grown one from some mysterious seeds Jeff procured that are supposedly the very rare Japanese black watermelons and have that over by the grape vine). Time will tell.