Watermelon is the best solution on a hot day

There is a heat wave in San Diego right now and in the middle of October it's not pleasant to have 87 degree weather. I am happy I left many of my warm season crops in the ground instead of replacing them with cool season crops because with overnight lows in the mid 60's, our plants are happily growing like weeds.

With that said, I'm hot, sticky and uncomfortable. While much of the rest of the country is enjoying warm Autumn soup, my mind went to our watermelon. There's nothing better on a scorching hot day than some sweet and juicy watermelon.

Gidget agrees that watermelon sounds good right now

I have been burned a couple of times throughout the season by harvesting watermelon that wasn't ripe yet so I was determined to make certain it was ready before I picked it. The nice farmer from Carlsbad who sells produce right next to us at the market has some gorgeous melons so I asked him a few weeks ago how to tell if your watermelon is ready. He explained that the tendril closest to the melon will die when the melon is ripe so in today's heat, I decided it was time to investigate if our tendrils were alive or dead.

Watermelon vine with dead tendril next to fruit

The closest tendril to this sugar baby was dead so I went ahead and prayed and then harvested it. I was so nervous that I would cut open the melon to find yellow flesh inside because I went through an eager streak earlier in the season and ruined some nice fruit. If you bought an under ripe melon from us at the market at any point over the summer, please let us know and we will do our best to make it up to you.

I took my melon inside and cut her open.

She  is beautiful, sweet and tasty

Tomorrow is going to be hot too but I think the day will be more bearable because I'll be dripping with cool watermelon juice.

This plant has been an awesome performer in our garden. It is completely disease free, it has been productive since March and the fruit is delicious when you pick it at the right time. I am going to save some of these seeds to plant again next year.