This morning, as I stood on the back deck and surveyed the garden, I said out loud to myself, "Where's my cantaloupe?" My largest cantaloupe usually hung off the side of the bed; you could always distinctly see it behind the foliage, but now it was gone. When I got to the bed, I confirmed it. The cantaloupe was no longer hanging from its vine. It was on the ground. Woohoo!! I read that ideally cantaloupes fall off the vine into your hand when they're ripe. This one didn't even wait for me, however it seemed to have had a little help from a few slugs that lingered on the empty vine, but the cut end smelled divine.
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Here's today's harvest. I enjoy looking back at old harvest pictures and seeing how they change with the season.
I don't think I've picked jalapeno peppers in three weeks. I used three tonight and froze the rest.
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This is the beautiful melon before we busted into it.
And here it is in all its liquid gold beauty. It was fantastic.
Sweet, soft, juicy, purely delicious. Every once in a while you can get that perfect cantaloupe from the store that is so soft it actually tastes like cantaloupe and not just a colored, crunchy something-that-resembles-melon. This is that melon. This also marks a first for me. I've never grown a fruit before. I'd say this was an okay first shot.
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I updated the sidebar where I record the bits and pieces the kids eat. The boy did eat a piece. He kept telling me how delicious it was, but making that face which masks horror. The girl kept repeating over and over that it was delicious, she loved it, she very much liked it. She smelled a piece, licked it and sucked on it a bit, but I doubt she ingested any of it. It still counts.
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Taking a page from Granny's book, here's our garden dinner tonight. We had a ground beef, potato, taco, chili whateveryouwannacallit casserole. 
From the garden was: tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers and okra.
From the garden was: tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers and okra.Why would there be okra in something resembling a taco bake? Why is okra in anything. There's never enough of it to do anything major at one time so it winds up making cameo appearances in everything. :)
The morning comes early. Sweet, delicious, cantaloupe gardening dreams.
***And why did the paragraphs all of a suddent start working down here? I swear it has something to do with when you upload the pictures in relation to how much you've formatted and typed already***
Okra...LMAO! I am growing for the first time too (if you don't count strawberries!). We now have 3 colonnade apple trees, a fig, and the grapes and blackberries & raspberries I planted last year are now producing! It's never enough, is it? Whenever I drive up and pop the back hatch on the Subaru, my husband says "NOW what???"!!
ReplyDeleteRibbit, as I read about your delicious cantaloupe... I could almost taste it's golden goodness! Congratulations on growing your very first fruit!
ReplyDeleteI've got the beginnings of cantaloupe & watermelon vines. Grow... grow... darn you!
HA! The man is incredibly understanding about the garden being spread out all over the house. I'm lucky in that respect, but it seems like zucchini and cucumbers are the only veggies you can have three or four of and be swimming in fruit. Everything else you need to plant a crazy amount. We get 2-3 okra pods about once a week. It's good enough to throw in stir fry or the random casserole, but not enough for a gumbo, but then again, it's summer. I'm not up for gumbo. Your fruit trees sound great! My dream is for a date tree. I love dates!
ReplyDeleteToni, I wanted to serve it for dessert on Sunday when Mom was over. I suppose I could have cut it and it would have been fine, but it was a lot of excitement to find it on the ground. My watermelon and other cantaloupe are just puttering along. The watermelon, like yours, is taking it's own sweet time about it. I'm sure I can find a US distributor of something similar, but here's something I think we could use in our fruit patches:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.homegardendecor.ca/items/garden-accessories/grow-damn-it-key-holder-gdgn0083-detail.htm
"I'm sure I can find a US distributor of something similar, but here's something I think we could use in our fruit patches:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.homegardendecor.ca/items/garden-accessories/grow-damn-it-key-holder-gdgn0083-detail.htm"
Ribbit... Love it!!!!!
I just found another that said "I tried, but it died." I think Kate and Crew needs that for her Death Day mascot.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful melon! I had a similar thought in the garden today except it was, where is my broccoli. It would appear something dug a couple up and moved them over a few inches. ERG!
ReplyDeleteYuck, Dan! I hope you can still get something out of them.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your picture on Matron's blog! Woohoo!!!
Ribbit..a melon! I'm soooo jealous. I have little blossoms, but nothing that even resembles a female. Maybe I should put a "Grow, Damn-it!" sign on the melon barrel!
ReplyDeleteIt sure took its sweet time about growing, I'll tell you.
ReplyDeleteWe need to find those blasted rocks in bulk to distribute amongst the lot of us.
Your melon looks wonderful....as a person who will never have a long or warm enough summer, I am envious beyond belief! (but very very happy for you!)
ReplyDeleteYou have one good blog here!
ReplyDeleteCongrats
Sue, that's too bad. Not even strawberries? Try it, you may be surprised. I've grown veggies, but the fruit brought a new demention to things. It was really exciting.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Steve. That's a great compliment! Hope you come back soon.
ReplyDeleteDinner looked yummy!
ReplyDeleteThe melon looked even more yummy!
Good work. I have not grown melons since we moved from central Washington to the coastal area of Washington. Just not enough heat here to do melons right. But I sure do remember the melon patch in mid summer and how beautiful the fruit smells when it is ripe.
Sorry I missed the cantaloupe. It looks beautiful and delicious! A nice reward for your efforts.
ReplyDeleteMom
I hope this helps. Try using your own html break tag (br/) after each paragraph and picture html, put them where you want the break. If you need a wider break use two html break tags (br/). Remember the arrows before < the br/ & after >.
ReplyDeleteexample: Today was such a beautiful day that I decided to work in the garden. As I was digging into the soil, I noticed a bright red ladybug crawling along the shoot of my plant. I just adore them.(one break)
Your Picture Here.(two breaks)
I hope to see a lovely butterfly today as well.
Sweet! I suppose I can do that in the edit HTML section. You know, it only happens when I load the pictures after I type things. If I load the pictures first and then add type, I don't have a problem. I'll try it this way. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI have had so many blog posts go awry, someone told me to switch to WordPress. Which I have yet to Do!
ReplyDeleteYummy looking cantaloupe!
I just love your blog.
Rosey
I've heard that, too, but blogger is so easy to use. This seems to be my only problem, but hopefully I can fix it easily with the HTML code.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you keep coming by, Rosey!
sometimes I'll have issues with the paragraph thingy in word if I'm using bullets, inserting pics, etc... I use shift+return to get around it. Maybe try that before getting into editing the html... The html will work, but IMO, it's a pain (DH writes code for a living so he scoffs at me when I wine about it, but darnit, I just want things to work the way people like him write it).
ReplyDeleteOh wow, that looks so delicious! We call them Rockmelons here and I would love to grow one myself. You are very clever.
ReplyDelete