One year, I grew watermelons here at Owl Feather Farm. My wife Nicole loves them. They are the epitome of late summer succulence. What could be better on a hot August afternoon than to slice open a juicy 12-pound melon on the picnic table, grab a glistening crimson piece, chow down, and sluice everything off afterward with the garden hose?
The melons I grew were a yellow heirloom Polish cool-climate variety. The ones I harvested were 6 inches at best, and when sliced open yielded about four tablespoons of melon flesh. They ripened in early October, not late August, and tasted … OK. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as they say in Kansas. But we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto. We’re on a small island in the Salish Sea.
