Week 11

We hit the melon patch on Friday.  We harvested a few almost ripe watermelons and a few Sun Jewels, the Korean style melon.  Some melons, such as the Sun Jewel, are really easy to judge when they are ready to eat.  First they turn yellow and then if they are ready the stem will slip which is means it will release from the melon when you apply the smallest amount of pressure to it.  Some melons are what we call forced slip, meaning they are ripe when the stem releases with a little encouragement.  Some melons are harvested based on color and skin condition.  The watermelons are the trickiest.  We look for a tendril that is dying down or dead depending on the variety.  Sometimes we look for a nice yellow spot where the melon sits on the ground and sometimes the skin changes color just a little bit.  We also thump them but that isn't always reliable and each variety has its own quirks.  We eat a lot of melons during melon season, particularly new varieties to make sure we understand how to harvest them.  It is fun to wade through the patch grabbing random melons and sampling them (along with hot, sticky and dusty and melons are heavy and difficult to haul out of the field - just incase you are jealous I will give you the full description).

Carrots
Lettuce
Cucumbers
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweet Onion
Herb Choice - most likely cilantro, dill, parsley or basil
Bell Pepper
Slicing Tomato
Sun Jewel Melon - Large Only
Papa Cacho Fingerling Potato - Add On Veggie Only

Papa Cacho-
Can you believe what you read on the internet?  We have tried to grow fingerlings before but we always end up underwhelmed with the results.  The seed costs more, they have a lower yield and because they are small they get culled harder for blemishes.  One blemish on a large potato isn't a big deal but who wants to peel a bunch of baby potatoes?  Anyway, I have a habit of deciding something isn't worth growing only to be lured in by some description on the internet or seed catalog that convinces me we need to try growing it again.  Papa Cacho has a cool name, is from Peru and lives up to its fingerling name with long somewhat strange looking tubers.  It is suppose to have decent yields and late blight resistance.  It is also uncommon and I had never seen seed available before.  Oh yeah, I fell for it hard.  When our seed potato shipment arrived in the spring we unpacked it and put the potatoes into crates to check for any rot and to let them come out of dormancy before planting them Kelly remarked on them.  Something heavy with with sarcasm like "I bet these are going to do great" came out of his mouth.  Well, I dug a plant today and I really hope they all look like the ones I dug today do.  They are beautiful - bright pinkish red and blemish free.  The flesh is also pretty - white with pink streaking.  The yields don't seem great, but decent for fingerling and the plants look healthier than any other potato out there.  Maybe, big maybe, I have found the fingerling for us!