Fenton Friday: Tragedy and Triumph

You can imagine how upset I was to arrive at the plot after a few days away due to nonstop rainstorms to find that one the two remaining 'Doll Babies' icebox watermelons had been hollowed out! I was almost speechless, but the curse words soon began to flow -- as you can imagine! Apologies to the nearby car repair shop, but am sure they've heard worse.

I scrambled to grab the remaining watermelon. It had a series of bites that almost broke through the inner rind in one section, but the inner flesh was still intact. I ran home with it, washed it off, and sliced it open. It is a nice yellow flesh inside. Sweet enough, but not super-sweet as I think it still needed a few more days to come to perfect ripeness on the vine, but no way was I leaving it in the plot for the rodents to totally disembowel this one as well!

I pulled up the watermelon vine and that is where the new fall interns are planting their broccoli seedlings and lettuce seeds. We are also planting some of each of those in containers across the street at my home garden to compare how those do to the ones in the plot. We have placed covercloths over them in both locations for now to keep out those rodent predators!

Elsewhere in the plot, I have been picking cucumbers and tomatoes every few days, along with cutting basil and other herbs to cook with. The edamame seems pretty much ready to harvest. I plan to pick those this weekend and start new purple pea seeds in their spot.

 What are you harvesting from your edible garden this week?

 About Fenton Friday: Every Friday during the growing season, I'll be giving you an update on my community garden plot at the Fenton Street Community Garden just across the street from my house in zone 7 Mid-Atlantic MD/DC border. I'm plot #16. It is a 10 ft x 20 ft space and this is our 8th year in the garden. (It opened in May 2011.) See past posts about our edible garden by putting "Fenton" into the Search box above.