Watermelon Thumping

Watching the PBS show Wired Science on KET 2 this evening I saw a number of interesting stories about science including ones on digital paleontology and the Wired Science expo showing some neat advances in robotics. The show prompted me to go to the pbs.org website and I found a story about watermelon thumping. Groups are doing research on using sound analysis to determine if a watermelon is ripe.

Here is the link: http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/story/63-watermelon_thumping.html

It is a pretty cool idea but I think I will stick with tendril analysis. Of course, what am I going to do in the store when buying a melon?

Pulled up the watermelon patch today and dumped about 5 underdeveloped melons in a ditch. The plastic was folded up for next year and the watermelon vines will be turned in to mulch. Having three days of frost just killed all the green on those vines and grape leaves have turned brown as well.

Last of the Watermelons

I picked the last of the watermelons last month. They turned out to be sweet. I cut them up, deseeded them and then gave them away to be used at different social functions.


As it turns out though, the continued hot weather has triggered the watermelon plants to start a second growth that has produced more watermelons. I think at least one more watermelon will mature to be harvested if the hot temperatures keeps up for the next several weeks.


Here are some pictures of the last Crimson Sweet melon picked. It weight 7.6 pounds and had a good red color.

The last Charleston Gray melon weighed 9 pounds.