The Case of the Mystery Melon - solved!

I did eventually manage to snap a few pics of my mystery melons (the ones I thought were cantaloupes, but were looking much more like watermelons), but alas, the camera didn't make it back into the house from our last car trip. I'm bad at bringing things back in...
However, the mystery is solved! I am in fact growing cantaloupes. Their "skin" (rind?) is starting to develop a very cantaloupe-like texture. Phew! I'm not sure how mature they will get, as we've already started to experience some low temps in the area. But maybe next week's predicted upper 80's-low 90's will give them a boost...

Update: here is a photo (I cleaned out the car...) of the melons before they were identified:

Not sure what I'm growing!

When I planted my garden, I picked up four plants in the cucurbit family: a zucchini, a summer squash, a cucumber, and what I thought was a cantaloupe.   Now I’m not so sure – there are strange melon-like fruits growing from one of the remaining plants (both the zucchini and summer squash met an untimely end), but these fruits do not look like cantaloupe to me…they look more like watermelon.  Of course, having never grown either type of melon, I couldn’t tell you for sure what they look like as ‘toddlers’.  I’m tempted to take one inside and cut it open – that would solve things quickly enough; however my dear sweet husband insists that I just be patient and wait until the melons are full-grown.  Grrrr….

I’ll have to post some photos of the mystery melons, if it ever stops raining…

 

 

wilted

As in both my poor zucchini plants and my spirits.  :(  I looked out the window today and almost all the leaves on my zucchini plant had fallen over.  It looked like it hadn't been watered in days, but we've had nothing but rain this week, so I know that is not the case.  A quick internet search has lead me to suspect some sort of squash borer or other pest.  I'm not sure if I can do anything to save them or if I should just give up and yank the whole thing out of the ground.  So sad - I hadn't quite had my fill of zucchini yet...

They've got us surrounded!

The tomatoes, that is.  They’re everywhere!  I dropped off a whole sack of them with ML last night and our fruit bowl is filled to the brim still.  And for every red tomato I pull off the vine, three green ones take its place…  Salsa time, here we come!

On the other side of the garden (all 4 feet of it) I have a new invader.  A small grayish bug which my visiting mother insists is another kind of squash beetle.  Great – just what I need!  The nasty chemical spray I tried earlier in the season has done no good…might have to try something else…

I pulled up a couple of onions last night, too – they are very small, but I’m not sure how big they were going to get anyway – the tops had fallen over and wilted, which I read was a sign of the onions being ready for harvest.  I pulled 3, but I’m planning on leaving the rest in the ground for a while to see what happens…

Just like heaven...

I popped a few cherry tomatoes into my salad for lunch today…they are SO delicious! I have never been a fan of cherry tomatoes, honestly. But then again, I’ve never grown them either, or eaten them just off the vine…heavenly! There were about 5 ripe ones yesterday, so just enough for one meal. Also got a couple of Romas, although I think they could have used couple of more days to languish on the vine – the DH snatched them up before I could protest.

I’m also working on my second batch of zucchini bread from the second monster zucchini we found this week – where are these things hiding?!? We check every day! Oh, well, I love bread, so it’s all good…

Like comparing apples and... cherries

So, after two years of fighting the cedar-apple rust on our poor little apple tree, we gave up.  The DH ripped it from the ground this week and replaced it with a mazer.  Yeah, that’s a type of small cherry tree.  (Pardon the bad Orange County quotation!).  

Our other fruit trees look great – healthy and sturdy.  No edible fruit yet, although the DH did find a lone plum on the ground under the plum tree this week.  Hopefully we’ll see something worthwhile one of these years… J

How big was it?

Last night the DH and I went out to check on the garden – there’s been a regular flow of squash ready for harvest this week, plus he wanted to swat cucumber beetles with our handheld bug zappers. What did we find but a huge zucchini – over 20 inches long!!! How did we miss that one before? It was towards the center of the garden and I usually poke around the edges, so it is likely that it was just out of my view the last few trips out to the plot. We also found the first “real” cucumber (I was fooled last week by an odd-looking zucchini). J