All kinds of melon wrongness

I'm not sure which is bigger news, if gardening news can be big anyway - the outcome of the square watermelon experiment or the status of the elusive African Horned Cucumber Jelly Melon aka STD Melon aka What The Fuck Is That Thing?

I eenie meanie miney moe'd and determined that the crazy ass looking melon with horns goes first. Because, in all fairness, they're both pretty crazy ass looking.

You know what I mean.

The horny one though!

Heh.

Me so horny.
(Come on, you knew that was coming.)

As you might imagine, the visiting of the garden after a nice long vacation where I couldn't stare at it every day and scream, 'GROW, YOU BASTARDS', at the melons is usually eventful. And, this late in the season with the recent and frighteningly powerful heat wave that came and hung out while we were gone really helped in the GROW department.

So, when I went out to the garden to see just exactly what it thought it was doing while we were gone and all casually said to Bubba, "Wouldn't it be nice if this fucking jelly melon actually grew a thing?", I almost immediately spotted a thing.

An African Horned Cucumber Jelly Melon thing that promptly bit me.

Y'all, this thing is pointy. As you can plainly see from the photo. And the sneaky thing is that there's another smaller one growing behind it which did not see when I reached in to carefully touch this one so OW DAMNIT.

But, the excitement was present, nonetheless, because YAY this long-awaited freakish looking fruit that could be mistaken for the business end of a mace has arrived. And now we shall all arm ourselves against it.

Nothing like pointy fruit for me to reconsider my position on weapons in the home.

The other big crazy looking gardening news is in the We're Freaks and Trying To Grow a Square Watermelon Department, of course.

And the weirdness here, it's two fold.

Firstly, the box method totally worked. Sort of.

This side's square.

This side's squarish.

That side? Not as square.

And I'm sweaty because it was 95 degrees at the time. Square melon though!

See, the thing began to grow to fit its box and all was fine until we drastically underestimated the sheer strength of a melon contained. These things could break out of a minimum security prision if given half a chance.

What happened was the fucking thing started growing against the handy lid Bubba attached and managed to lift the top half of the box off despite the FOUR screws holding it in place. And these werent, like, little short pussy IKEA screws made of ham or something - NO. These are long galvanized screws that were used in the building of our fucking fence, people.

Yes, it's dramatic - the mighty watermelon.

Anyway, that's one of the folds of weirdness - the brutal force of a growing watermelon. Plus, look at its cute moon on the butt there? Cute moon.

As for the second fold of weirdness, remember when I said, "oh how super fun would it be if the flesh inside grew into a square, too, but let's not be crazy because that would never happen!" or something like that?

Hello, crazy:

I believe I speak for all of us when I say, "What the fuck?"

And then, "Neatoooooooo"

Yah, it totally did.

Grow into the square shape inside there. For reals. I nearly shit when I sliced it open and not for the normal reason that slicing open a watermelon scares me (because I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to lose control of the thing with my 10" chef's knife buried it its fleshy insides and it's going to come crashing down on my feet in the kitchen). Bubba wins this bet - the flesh grows into a square shape when the melon is a square shape.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeird.

Now, for the awesome part of this experiment: the efficiency factor.

Remember again how the Japanese were buying these things for a small fortune because they fit so conveniently like in their tiny small fridges or some such nonsense? Well, yes, that is true:

I'm sorry, but that is awesome.

But what's also true and way more efficient, if you ask me (and if you don't want my opinion then what the hell are you doing here anyway? Just a question.), is the fact that slicing up a square watermelon is, like, 100 times easier and less wasteful than performing the same task on a round one.

And not just because of the terrifying chef's knife scenario I described before.

Number one, the thing sits flat and sturdy on the cutting board:

Huh. That's handy.

Yes, indeedy. No rolling about. No precarious holding in place with one hand while stabbing recklessly with the mighty long blade in the other.

ThenTHEN when you go to slice off the rind, you are left with this fine rectangular cube of watermeloney perfection that slices up super easy like into perfect little chunks easy for storing in your favorite also rectangular Tupperware.

I'm a bit self-conscious about how excited this made me.

Is it wrong to be excited about perfectly chunked watermelon? It's not, right? OK. Phew.

Doesn't that just beat all?

I'm so about this square watermelon thing, friends. It's going to become a sickness, I can just tell. I mean, I've already chosen a smaller variety to grow next year and Bubba's already drawing up mental mind plans for the boxes he'll build. We're nuts.

So, yeah, we're dispatching of this 17 1/2 pound square beast in two ways;
1. in perfectly cubed form and
2. in watermelon juice form because have you tasted watermelon juice? It is heavenly. Basically just blended up watermelon with a bit of water and BAM most refreshing beverage ever.

OH, and don't let me forget this vaguely strange melon occurrence that also was waiting for me when I got home from vacation: Snakes in a Garden.

Yeah, that's the OH MY GOD IT'S TOO CREEPY HOW COULD YOU GROW SOMETHING SO BIZARRE Georgia Rattlesnake Watermelon that doesn't look too weird in comparison now does it? All you melon fearfuls, you. So silly.

And that is as much wrongness as I'm willing to put out there today, adieu.