Watermelon Woes.

We've been watching these melons grow from itty bitty cuties, to full grown monsters. Let's recap--here's one about the size of a ping pong ball:

And then another about the size of a football:

And one just about full grown-or the size of a size 4 soccer ball:  (you soccer moms know what size that is!)

Since we've never grown watermelons and neither Brad nor I even had them growing in our parents' gardens growing up, we turned to the most reliable source of information-gathering in the world.

That's right folks, we GOOGLED it. We Googled "when to harvest watermelon" or something like that.

Because Google is always right, right?

Soooo, the wisdom of Google said that we should look for the melon to be at the "days to maturity" listed on the seed pack. Check-seed pack said 80 days, we were at 90+.  Ok, next, Google  said that the tendrils near the watermelon stem should be brown/firm. Check. Brown. Firm. It also said the watermelon's underside spot should be a creamy yellow. Check. Creamy yellow. It also said the watermelon should be of the approximate size stated on the package. Check. Seed packet says 5-10 or 6-12 pounds (2 packs of the same variety!)

So, we harvested it. Bryce helped--he's been fascinated by them growing and was so excited to pick one!

It's too heavy for Bryce to hold by himself. I guess that it's 10 pounds.

Here's the main watermelon harvester, proud of "his" melon. And the weight? 9 pounds 15 ounces. PERFECT size.

 Evidently, there is an art to picking them when they're perfectly ripe. You can Google it all you want, but it seems that sometimes things just aren't Google-able. We cut the watermelon while on vacation and was dissapointed to find that it was NOT ready. It was light pink in color, the seeds were white and it's interior resemembled  a loofa gourd, not a watermelon.

As a friend from college commented on Facebook, "It's a learning experience."  (She's a teacher, can you tell?). We did learn. We learned that Mom is impatient and really wanted to eat watermelon! We learned that looks can be deceiving and we learned that watermelon growing is an art, not a science.

It's a good thing we have 7 left.