See how the stem leading up to the fruit is turning brown? I’m glad we caught it before the fruit was compromised.

Fruit abortions have been happening in abundance in our garden. First, the third marrow fruit succumbed to the drought… Then our struggling chilli plant discarded its fruits. The mini bittergourd plant, too, has been bearing only tiny fruits that quickly turn yellow on the vine.

Aw, it’s still pretty small! Not unless it’s a miniature watermelon…

Finally, my last fruiting pride and joy – the watermelon – followed suit. This was despite careful watering at least every other day. Luckily, I noticed that the fruit was just beginning to turn yellow – which made me notice that the stem holding the fruit was drying up like an umbilical cord. So, we harvested a mini watermelon instead of a normal-sized fruit. It was still around the size of a grapefruit, but was quite hefty in weight. This made me hopeful that the fruit would be better than the first baby watermelon that aborted.

Cross-section of the watermelon. What a thin rind!

As you can see, it was ripe enough to be eaten, and had quite a number of seeds inside. It tasted nice and watermelony, and while I wished it would have been sweeter, it was still quite sweet – and very juicy! The rind was also quite thin, but then that meant there was more fruit flesh to eat! I can’t wait to try growing this again, hopefully in better growing conditions. Then I’ll be able to determine if this is a miniature fruit or not.

Yummy! Chilled watermelon is a pleasure to eat when the weather is hot, dry and hazy.

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