Watermelons anyone?

We got our seeds from a watermelon that we ate with friends a few months ago.  Elijah says the watermelon was yummy, and that’s why we kept the seeds from that particular one.  We dried the seeds out and put them in a bag.

The other day the kids planted those seeds.  We had our helper Wilson dig out a small area for a garden.  The biggest job was getting rid of all the rocks.  Elijah has not forgotten his South Dakota roots as you can see from the pictures.  He still has his rubber boots for farming days in Haiti.

The kids planted about 3-4 seeds in each hole.  This is something the Haitian farmers do because they are never sure how many of the seeds will come up.  This way they guarantee at least one corn or melon plant.  The collected some rocks to put little rings of rocks around their plantings.  Then we waited.

It only took a couple days for the small watermelon plants to pole their heads above the ground.  The ground is warm so the plants germinate really quickly.  We are even getting some rain these days.  The kids or Wilson are faithful to water the small plants.  In a few months we will enjoy our fresh watermelons.  The kids’ mouths are watering already.

As we mentioned above the quality of the soil is pretty poor.  But we were excited that on Saturday our friends Chris and Leslie brought along a load of good dirt.  Everyone had fun unloading it into our garden plot and in some other areas of the yard.  We even did a little landscaping around our yard.  Now if we can only get more grass to grow!