Adopt a Crop 2010 : Exotic. Freaky. You decide.

So, good job, people. On picking the melon I wanted you to pick.

My mental powers of persuasion must be getting good and strong since most of the people who've seen that melon have not wanted to have anything to do with it, much less to grow it in a garden for food.

No, I do believe the question of whether ownership requires inoculation or at least a stout whip was brought up.

If my memory serves, it does not require either, though ownership may very well require me to purchase a juicer, which is on my list anyway now that I've taken to dispatching the farmshare beets in juice form because HOLY how else am I going to reclaim the friggen crisper if I don't get rid of them quickly and swiftly and SOON? See, thing is, I don't know. So, I feel I need a juicer.

And, hey, these melons allegedly have a "banana-lime-tropical fruit taste and [are] good juiced" which sounds a lot like a ringing endorsement for a juicer, then doesn't it? Yes. I'm sure you agree.

I'm considering this one since it's the same as the one we used in Hawaii when we were there last and let me easily make these from Bubba's coconut conquest which sounds kind of freaky but was really just the result of Bubba swinging an abandoned golf club at a coconut tree while I drank cocktails and cheered him on.

Quite a conquest it was.

Anyway, let me know if you have a juicer that you love and that I should buy and to which I should dedicate extremely valuable cabinet space. More importantly, if you have a juicer that you HATE and from which I should run screaming, please tell me about it so I can avoid a horrible and disappointing juicing disaster, kay?

Thanks muchly.

Now, let's stop talking about juicers and conquests and instead about this year's Adopted Crop: Jelly Melons. 

Specifically, African Horned Cucumber Melons.

Do I eat it or get a restraining order from it? Hard to say.

They're kind of a hideous sight, I'll agree. Though, aren't you kind of intrigued at the same time? Kinda wonder what something like *that* could taste like or what it might look like chucked across the street at the kids who shriek mightily for no good god damned reason?

Yes, me too.

And, really, imagine a projectile such as this headed in your direction...You'd shut up and run, wouldn't you? Me too and that's all I wanted to know.

Anyway, the jelly melon has won a space in this year's garden. And, according to Bubba (he got to choose the other melon without even having to vote against or with anyone - so special), the jelly melon will be growing (hopefully successfully) alongside the Georgia Rattlesnake Watermelon - with its freaktastic stripes and enormous hugeness.

I don't think I even have a cutting board large enough to accommodate one of these.

Imagine the cute couple they'll make - all huge and spiny and striped and jelly-filled!

Ok, so it's going to be less cute and more scary, but that's OK, they'll go well with the black tomatoes and purple beans in the other beds to complete my haunted garden of vegetable evil.

Or whatever. Maybe it's just really exotic and I should be playing the Rare Heirloom Deliciousness card here instead.

Though I do lean more to the freaky than the exotic, truth be told. I mean, really, what's exotic about brown hair, green eyes and freckles? Nothing. But you put that boring package in florescent yellow goggles and trot it out on some lava with matching yellow fins and a potty mouth and it does Freaky just fine.

And suddenly I'm a little self-conscious so never mind that last part, there.

All you need to know is that the garden plan has been finalized, thanks to some fairly enthusiastic voting on y'all's part (74 votes total) and Bubba's swift choosing of the watermelon which took him all of two seconds.

Apparently he's missed watermelons in the garden. Or at least he's missed their vines taking over our backyard, thus rendering null and void any thought of mowing or yard work back by the beds because WHOOPSY the watermelon vines are covering everything and totally in the way.

And when I plant the rest of this season's off-color vegetables, I'll let you in on all of the vulgar details. 

Are you starting to sense an alarming theme? Yeah, me too.

Commence gardeningblahblahblah.