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.

Forest updates

It is waay too hot to get anything done in the forest. I went there a couple of times, cut down some weed (bamboo), moved around a few logs and after just about 1 hour got very dizzy almost to the point of fainting, although I kept drinking, shaded myself and kept a slow and cool pace.
The shredder is still waiting for parts. After no answer from the maker for a month I sent a reminder asking what the heck is going on. Only then they answered that their supplier wants to know the dimensions of the pulley which they are supposed to send to me.
Idiots. I told them nicely that the maker surely should know the goddamn dimensions of the parts of a machine they make better than me, so please go answer your supplier by yourself. I cannot measure stuff for you.
They apologized and said they will let the supplier know. Also again they apologized for the delay and said it will take a little more time.
Retards.
I should have asked for my money back from the get go, instead of trying to get things to work by repairing...
Anyway, I am moving all the bamboo to one side of the plot now, so they can just lie there and rot while I can get access to the plot to dig and what not. Later when it gets colder I can burn them if they are taking too much space.

This is the north side. I will be cutting these down next.

The north side bamboo belong to my neighboring plot. He already said OK but I just have to get his approval once more to be sure, and then clean them out.

I can't have these fall down on my saplings

Whenever a wind blows I see how the bamboo on the north bend back and forth with it. They are strong and seldom fall, but when they do I have seen what mess they make and how they break everything under them.

new growth

On the plot floor, I haven't been cutting weed other than bamboo so a new layer of green has slowly covered a lot of it. It's nice to look at, but will eventually have to go too.
Here is the 2-3 meter path I have opened up so far by moving the logs into the north side.

Lots of sweat went into clearing that

Getting warm...

Suddenly all the rain stopped and now we are in hell mode. Scorching sun all day long and it is hot hot hot. At least the garden likes it.
We got big lilies opening here and there, so I am afraid to let Tora out cause he may lick or chew on them directly or indirectly.

Red one at the entrance

White ones behind the blueberries

The sudden appearance of the sun following the constant rain has made the watermelons spread all over. They have bloomed and now just sitting there and waiting to be pollinated.

Out of nowhere... at least the bugs cannot threaten them anymore

A similar explosion of blueberries is happening, and I am picking 1-2 kg ripe berries everyday. I have made a couple batches of jam, fed the chickens with them, given away lots to neighbors and also made 3 litres of juice/syrup. Still they keep coming.

They're right there, behind the tomatoes

Sunflowers, although still tiny, waited for just the right time to show themselves, with the sun.

Yep... they're tiny

Also the passion fruits keep popping up. Right now I can count 5. The first one is same size as before, pretty small. But number 2 and 3 are getting bigger and bigger every day.

I added one more step to the trellis, just to be prepared for further growth

Jammin'

Picked the year's first batch of blueberries, and they look great. I guess putting a bit of fertilizer and cutting the weed around them had some effect. Boiled it all together with a bit of radish syrup (instead of sugar) and voila! We got home made blueberry jam.

Extremely yummy!

The cloudy and rainy continues... as a result the zucchini just keep coming out tiny and start to rot quickly. The tomatoes have started to gradually turn to orange color, but it is very slow and with this pace it will probably take a couple more weeks till they are red. Already I have picked and thrown away 3 big tomatoes that started turning brown rather than red as they too start to rot. Damn this summer with all the rain and no sun. They said on the news that the same thing is happening to the farmers and their crops are much smaller and they have to sell them at a higher price this year.
Oh well... not much one can do against the forces of nature.
The passion fruit keeps climbing the trellis, with a bit of guidance, and there are already 3 fruits hanging there waiting to ... rot?

Come on sun, make these ripen rather than rotten

Promised myself to spend at least 1 day next weekend in the forest moving bamboo, that is if the weather permits it...