The other day we were cleaning up in the orchard, cutting back and taking out plants that were killed off by the hail.  Lost one of my Armenian cucumber plants and had to harvest damaged veggies.
One of my helpers was pulling on a melon vine, it didn’t move and he went to investigate. Wedged behind the growbags and the fence he discovered our biggest melon of this season:

Moon and Stars Melon

Red Moon and Stars Watermelon

Everybody got to hold it and we thought it was around 30 – 35 lbs.  My scale stops at 10 lbs.

Moon and Stars Melon

Moon and Stars Watermelon

The million dollar question:  How will it taste?
Since it was too big to fit in the fridge and we just had to know, we cut it up and it tasted great!  It brixed around 11.5, but actually taster sweeter.  I can’t figure out why some of our watermelons taste so delicious and other are just bland.   We also had to throw away several melons because they got soft and started to rot (like blossom end rot on tomatoes.)  But it’s definitely worth growing them because you rarely get a good melon at the store.   I especially like the Moon and Stars and we also had very delicious yellow watermelons.
We had already harvested two small watermelons, not expecting this surprise find and we also picked lots of Peace Vine tomatoes:

Melons, Peace Vine Tomatoes and Southern Giant Curled Mustard

Melons, Peace Vine Tomatoes and Southern Giant Curled Mustard

You can see the hail damage on the melons and fortunately one of the tomato plants was sheltered by the fence and a tree. The hail caused quarter sized holes in my neighbor’s poly panels.  I love those Peacevine cherry tomatoes — they taste like real tomatoes, too acidic for some, perfect for me.
My two helpers have been cooking up a storm and I gained quite a few pounds last month:

dinner

Dinner:  Safeway herb salad (our lettuce is just coming up), mustard, local eggs and as with almost every meal, zucchini and squash.

I love the Southern Giant Mustard and currently have two patches growing in the orchard.  It survived the hail without much damage and it is HOT!  I love it.
We’ve been eating so well since my helpers have been serving meals to die for.  I will miss those two!