Greetings from Upstate New York!

Yes indeed, you are looking at a watermelon, and this is not a picture post card from Georgia. It's a Charlston Grey right here in upstate New York. According to the Shumway seed catalog, these melons grow to a whopping 24 inches long, 30 to 35 pounds. The truth is we are getting pretty excited about this baby!

Some gardeners plant the things they know will do well. We do that, but we are a pair of gardeners with a touch of Chuck Yeager in us. Every year with something, we have to push that envelope. This year it's a big fat watermelon with real seeds, not a seedless melon with those little white things that they say you can eat. (Who wants to?)

We have time to wait and watch. It's just the beginning of August and anything could happen, but right now there it is, a real, almost foot long, watermelon.