Summer Sweet

It's good to know at least one or two good fruits come out of my garden each year...

Egg next to it for size comparison

I waited and waited until all signs of ripeness where there. The color of the pale part was just perfect, the little twig thingie next to the water melon was all dried out and dead, and the sound when I tapped it just right. And then I removed the Mickey Mouse net that was protecting it, noticing that it had grown a lot in size since I covered it, cause it barely came off... and then with ease picked the fruit. Water splashed from the branch it was attached to.
It felt nice and heavy, thanks to the constant recent rain...

Yummmy

The whole water melon was extremely juicy and I couldn't eat it without spilling a lot. As for taste, it was extremely sweet and good in the middle, maybe equal to the size of a couple apples, ok sweet the rest of the way where it was red, and no taste where the red color was thin. Unfortunately the not red part to the shell was pretty thick.
It had also lots of tiny seeds. But no big deal.
The next day I was coming back from feeding the chickens when I noticed the other big melon had cracked open, I guess because it had grown too fast. The net had still protected it from most of the bugs but maybe a handful had found their way in and were feasting on the goodness.
I gave that whole fruit to the chickens. They had a blast. It was a very hot and sunny day and they enjoyed the cool and juicy water melon a lot.

Stuck

Amazingly my complaints did work, and the company I bought the shredder from did send me the big brand new impeller part for free. In fact (although I think that was a mistake on their part) they sent me 2 impellers.
Great, I took a trip to the woods and started taking apart the shredder to get to the impeller. It was not an easy task.

impeller is the black thing in the foreground

There was no way around it. I literally disassembled the whole thing to reach the center part with impeller. After it was done, I had to remove the blades from it, but the thing had rusted and warped so badly that I had to break a ball bearing to detach the damn thing.
So.. next week I will be buying a new bearing and then put the thing back together with the new impeller and blades again. That is if I remember in what order they were put in the first place.
I keep telling myself that I don't really need the shredder and that I can burn or let the bamboo rot. That is positive thinking, to keep me from going insane every time I touch the machine from hell and something new breaks.

Show me your melons

Interesting... the watermelons seem to just pop up instantly out of nowhere. I cant really see any gradual growth in size. One day there is a flower, and the next day there is a watermelon. OK, OK, I see some change in size but nothing big. If the fruit was tiny when I found it first, a couple of weeks later it is maybe 3 cm bigger, but still tiny. Same deal with medium size ones etc.
So the first watermelon I found has now kind of stopped growing and instead started shriveling so I figured I should pick it cause it will waste the plant's energy and focus.

tiny, cute shriveled up thing

Now there are 4 watermelons left and maybe 4 more female flowers with potential to be pollinated. All 4 fruits are much bigger than the first one. Let's see if they grow more and prove my pop-up theory wrong.

this one is kinda heavy

I stopped worrying about the civet eating these, cause I put out a trap in the garden, and also I wrapped 3 of these watermelons in nets to protect them...

Not as big as the one before, but bigger than the first one

When it is not raining too much, I water the plants, and there has been a lot of sun so I expect some edible fruits...

Watermeloncoli

The watermelon flowers got pollinated and the nearest bed to the house is full of green, big leafs with that typical shape.

Just had sex

Still very tiny. Compare with the ant to its upper right

While taking the pictures above, saw one that had been growing in hiding...

Taking shape..

And just a couple of days later, it looks like this

Mini mini water melon

Here is the whole bed

And there is another tiny water melon 

There are a couple of mini tomatoes also growing in the same bed... not that I planted them there but after last year they just pop up every where like weeds.
Really looking forward to seeing how far the water melons get. But there is this worrying thought in the back of my head... Before I had a chance to harvest, the first big tomatoes as well as almost all the corns were eaten up by the civet who seems to see my garden as its own buffet by now. As you remember it started by eating the eggs, and attacked one my my hens and almost killed her. Now that I keep those locked up, it has started eating fruit and veggies. It did have its fun with my strawberries too. I can only see how it eats the watermelon too just before they are ready to pick.
The fencing and netting can hold most animals away but the civet seems to not get the point, and is doing real damage now.

The first tomato that is not stolen yet

So now I got myself a trap and put it in the backyard. Hoping to catch the thief/murderer...

It's the biggest one I could get. 1 meter long.

I put a banana, a tomato and an egg in it.