A Watermelon in My Garden

Spring was approaching and my flower garden was beginning to show signs of blooming. I stood looking over my garden at the little tiny leaves that were peeking out of the ground rising toward the sunlight, when I noticed something that didn't belong there. It was a vine that was winding itself all through some of my emerging flowers. I stooped down to examine this vine and noticed that it had a little round bulb attached to it. My ten year old mind was whirling, trying to figure out what this was! It certainly didn't look like any of my other flowers; so without wiping the dirt off of my shoes, I ran into the house and got my parents to come look at what I had found. When they came out to the garden, my mother bent down to examine my discovery and recognized that it was a watermelon vine!

Both my parents stood there chuckling that a watermelon vine had appeared in the middle of my garden. We had been living there for a number of years and never saw any signs of watermelons trying to bloom anywhere else on our property.

At dinner that evening the discovery of the watermelon vine was the topic of conversation. My parents began remembering back to early Fall when my brother and I were sitting on the back porch steps having a watermelon seed spitting contest. Was it possible that a couple of those seeds could have laid dormant for that long? It only takes about ninety days from planting to harvest.

Thinking back, I recalled how my brother and I were sitting on the back steps giving it all we had that afternoon; trying to see who could spit their seeds the fartherest into the yard. As we sat there devouring slices of watermelon with the juice running down our chins, we pummeled the ground with our seeds and never gave a thought that some would take root and eventually grow into watermelons! We were just two kids having a great time with a seed spitting contest. And by the way, I won.

My parents were amazed that some of the seeds did take root and grow. Usually this doesn't happen; but this time some found their way far enough into the soil and waited there until I planted my garden.

We all took turns tending to the vine as well as the rest of my garden. This would become a cherished memory for me that year. I remember saying to my father how amazed I was at how a small seed could produce such a big fruit, and then he explained to me how a little acorn can produce a mighty oak tree. That summer we enjoyed our surprise watermelon at a family backyard picnic; as well as a bouquet of flowers from my garden.

My garden never produced any more melons, even though we tired to plant seeds again by having many more backyard seed spitting contests over the course of the next few years.