Back on the 24th of April, the kids and I planted the watermelon and moved them upstairs to our south facing window.
We completely redid our patch, starting with a new irrigation system that was more consistent and evenly spaced. We buried it beneath the plastic and then transplanted our watermelon starts (that had gotten quite leggy despite my best efforts.) It was a very windy season, but finally they managed to take off and start to fill in.
After the initial push to get them in the ground, we'd check on them occasionally and pull them out from under the plastic. And then before we knew it. . . we were starting to see baby watermelon!
We had a really wet and cool August that didn't help speed things along. They were slow to ripen. We kept dragging our feet on picking many because they just weren't good yet. And then finally at the end of August they were ready to start picking.
Dalanie still loves the bee stings.
It was time to set up our stand.
Our corn was on in the beginning, which always help to bring the customers.
Ruby's fitting jammies.
We had several volunteer watermelon plants pop up around the perimeter of the patio.
One of the first of MANY fruit salads. This one featured a yellow doll.
Kutter Arbon was spending the day with us when it was time for our first thorough picking.
We filled up our wagon and took them down to Hard Times in Firth to sell them.
We couldn't wait for the Mountain Dew guy to leave because he really hurt our business.
Toward the end, the kids were getting restless so we had a seed spitting contest.
And then we made this sign which proved to be quite entertaining. We sold down at Hard Times twice and it was a good way to sell the melons.
Meanwhile . . . back at our stand at home, business remained constant.
Marlene Reid promised the kids that she would stop by and see their stand. She was impressed and enjoyed her visit.
I love it when the family works together without much coercion. One Sunday night, Brent got to be part of our pricing party.
Ruby was pretty good at predicting the price.
Then we weighed them and Dalanie labeled them with a price sticker.
I hope my kids will remember the yummy watermelons that they ate as kids, but more importantly, I hope that they are learning life skills that will remain with them. At times I question if it's really worth it. But then I watch my children interact with customers, count back change, or work together to unload melons and I think it's safe to say that we'll be raising melons as long as we are raising kids.
