Harvest’s end spurs ‘melon choly’

loading...

Once upon a time, there lived a gardener whose summers were fraught with one worry or another.

Would there be enough rain?

Would pests or pestilence decimate the cucumbers? The potatoes? The tomatoes?

Would the weeds run amok?

Would the resident snake scare our gardener one too many times?

Would frost creep in on dawn’s edge to kill every last leaf, flower and piece of produce left on the vine?

These were serious worries for our gardener, although after many summers of toiling in the heart of Maine, there descended a peace over this plot of earth, an acceptance that what will be will be.

Yet one worry remained, spreading its darkness like the bloom of mildew on a rose. It was this worry that stayed with our gardener as years ebbed and flowed and crops came and went.

Every spring, she would repeat the same ritual and wonder if this would be the season that vanquished the one worry that haunted every harvest.

Would a watermelon ever grow?

Ah, you laugh, of course.

Why, there’s a watermelon to be had in every market any day of the year, you say. Someone should, perhaps, point this out to our gardener, who obviously has been in the sun a wee bit too long.

Trust me, her family already did.

Why then? you ask.

For the sheer fun of it.

Watermelon, our gardener found, originated in a desert, the Kalahari of Africa. Botanists discovered its wild ancestor growing there yet.

There is something poetic about that, given that watermelon is more than 90 percent water and deserts are not.

History has it that the first recorded watermelon harvest – depicted in hieroglyphics – was about 5,000 years ago in Egypt. Watermelons even were entombed with the bigwigs, the prevailing wisdom that they might get hungry wandering in the afterlife.

The fruits gained popularity as a sort of canteen for desert travel. Our gardener enjoys this romantic picture – only in her head and not available hieroglyphically or otherwise, as far as we know – of a few watermelons strapped to a camel and bouncing around as it lopes along a ridge of a sand dune.

Who are we to say it didn’t happen?

By the 10th century, some of those watermelons ended up on a different path, to China by way of merchant ship. Europe was a bit slower to get watermelons, which came over with the Moors, who also could have strapped them to their horses with a similar camel-like effect, our gardener likes to think.

Should we tell her that seeds make lighter burdens?

Watermelons showed up in 1629 in Massachusetts, and now, nearly 400 years later, this long journey from the Kalahari to Hudson faced a turning point.

It began badly. Every year another failure. Too wet, too dry, who could tell? Sometimes the seeds refused to sprout.

Desperation set in. Our gardener succumbed and bought seedlings in May. Gently she planted them because she knew they could die from shock if their roots were disturbed.

To no avail. All seemed well for days and then each and every shoot withered and died.

Yet hope remained.

Our gardener planted two diminutive varieties, Garden Baby and Gold Flower, an orange-fleshed introduction from China.

The seeds sprouted. And grew. And grew.

A flower appeared. Then more. And still more. But only flowers day after day.

Then one July afternoon there appeared a tiny bubble of green. It grew. And grew.

And then another. And another, until our gardener counted five green bubbles: three Garden Babies and two Gold Flowers.

Our gardener could, indeed, grow watermelons and with this triumph vanquished her last worry. And she and her watermelons lived happily ever after.

The End…

But wait. A new cloud loomed. Who possibly could know when to pick the fruits of this labor, especially since there had never been any fruit from this labor before?

Our gardener remembered a tip she’d once read: Look for the tendril closest to the fruit to turn brown. Then she was to look for the spot on the melon that rested on the ground and see if it had turned yellow. Plus she could knock on them to see if they made that dull thud.

All in all, a foolproof plan.

So came the day when our gardener spied the first tendril that had turned. The spot on the melon’s underside was yellow. It thudded when knocked.

She broke it from the vine and raced to the kitchen. As she set the knife into the rind, the melon split in half it was so ripe.

Our gardener scooped out a spoonful and savored the sun-warmed sweetness that filled her senses.

A few harrowing, seed-spitting moments later, she wondered whether to try seedless next year.

The End.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS copy desk editor and systems editor. Her e-mail is jpineo@bangordailynews.net.