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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

A different kind of fun with watermelons. You know what I'm talking about. Nasty.

In case you're not already convinced that Bubba and I are complete freaks when left unsupervised in our own home, we're now trying to grow a square watermelon.

Why?

Hmmm...why NOT?

Our thinking is this - we have a lot of watermelons on the plants right now and they grow into weird shapes on their own so why not try to create a shape that would be useful or at least emulate a shape that is useful for melons in foreign countries.

WHAT?

Yeah, I know. It sounds like something a crazy person might say. And to that I say, "Welcome!"

We're a bit mad over here, this is true.

Basically, Bubba saw a square watermelon for sale for $100 in Japan once and never could get it out of his head. I guess the idea was that it fit super efficiently into small Japanese refrigerators and the Japanese are so watermelon hungry while also being so strapped for refrigeration space that they'll throw down a C-note for a melon. Well, then he started dating a gardener and eventually married her and every year she grew watermelons he made some vague reference to, "wouldn't it be cool if we grew square watermelons and then sold them for $100?"

In case you're not good at following along or have ended up here unbeknownst to your own self, *I* am that gardener and now we're growing square watermelons.

No, really.

To be clear, by "growing" I mean that there was a medium sized watermelon growing all normal and round on the vine and then we sneaked a box (hand built by Bubba to his future melon's specifications) under its rear end in the hopes that it would grow out to the box's boundaries and then begin to grow to fill the box's square shape.

Super normal looking, except for the box.


Well, as fucked up as that all sounds, it appears to be working.

I believe this is called "growing to fit one's boundaries".
So, once we saw that the melon would grow to the shape of the box and then HOLY it continued also growing taller - nearing the top of the box - Bubba built a lid for it so that it would be square all the way around and not just on its sides.

Yep. This is what giant children do when left to entertain themselves.
So, now we have a watermelon growing - hopefully into a square shape - inside of this box in our yard. I have no idea if this is going to work or if we're just going to have a box filled with watermelon goo when we unscrew the lid, but I guess we'll see.

For now, I just look through the peep hole on the top and hope to not see anything gross or suspicious looking.

I feel sort of rude always looking in the hole. Is that weird?
I'm not sure if we'll do anything special with the square melon, in the event that it turns out to actually grow into a square shape and be edible, but I imagine we'll take photos to show you guys and then probably slice it open to see if the actual watermelon flesh grew also into a square.

Though I sort of doubt that part. But can you imagine if it did? Super fun!

I also bet we'll put it in our fridge just to enjoy the experience of having a super efficiently shaped melon to look at when we go in there for tonic. And for whoever it was that was worried about the chemicals in my Diet Tonic, I just want to say that I don't know what's in my Diet Tonic and I don't care because I've spent up all my Caring energy on avoiding crazy ass shit that's in produce, beef, eggs and chicken. So, until there's a FDA recall on Diet Tonic, I'm not going to strain myself.

And, hey, I don't drink soda aside from the Diet Tonic that goes into my cocktails (for fear of the Fatness, don't forget), so I'm ingesting only a tiny percentage of the chemicals that most Americans take in during the course of a normal day. This makes me feel better about this decision of mine anyway.

Oh, and if you're for some reason wondering whether we're going to try to actually sell a watermelon for $100 - no. We're not. Though we're open to offers.

9 comments:

  1. Some people might say you have too much time on your hands. I am not one of those people. Instead I will say that DAMMIT I wish I could grow watermelons, because this is just the sort of thing A. would love.

    Boys, you know.

    Alas, our season is generally too short for such a melon, so I'll just admire yours.

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  2. You know...just today I was trying to cut up my watermelon and I said to Matt that watermelons should be square because it wouldn't be so dangerous to cube the fucker up.

    Then Finny is all up in here growing watermelons in squares.

    The fack that we've somehow mentally connected is a little scary.

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  3. You know they also grow things like star-shaped cucumbers? Funky place, Japan.

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  4. I have 2 watermelons growing. I'm hoping when they are ripe they'll tell me cuz I have no freaking clue lol.

    GL with the square one, doesn't it need more sun?

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  5. Wouldn't the poor little guy need more sun? You two crack me up -- hope you won't forget to let us know how it all turns out. Personally, I hope it's a screaming success -- 'cause that will insure even more entertainment next year when you come up with a new shape for your watermelon growing.

    Oh, and perhaps a name change is in order? FinnyGrows? FinnyPEEPS???

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  6. I would have never thought to do that in a million years. Leave it to you two crazies.

    Side note, I found this great tonic water at my local organic market that is made with agave. It's not as sweet as the traditional one, but I like it a lot. http://www.amazon.com/Q-Tonic-Premium-Water/dp/B001CDVCGA

    or you go go scrap the bark of a quinine tree and make your own, because that seems like something you might do ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. WOW! your readers are as funny as you are....... eh Katie.

    Surely, you must eagerly look to see how your witty followers react to your blog. I can be pretty witty too, I just can't seem to bring it here.
    Signed,
    a dud for now
    TR

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love this! I've done similar things to zucchinis, and I've even been tempted to buy a plastic mold that you can pop around a young squash that forces it into a face shape...yes, some of us gardeners are a few degrees off plumb in all sorts of ways...

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  9. See for me the defining moment was when I was trying to figure out when Bubba started going out with a gardener. Oh yeah, duh. That's you.

    Just ignore me. I haven't slept since the Clinton administration.

    ReplyDelete

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.