The Best of the 2009 Harvest

In my ghetto garden, the humble cantaloupe wins hands down for the best harvest of the season. Now, this cantaloupe was not the most prolific or most bountiful plant; but, it was certainly the most tasty fruit that I have ever consumed in my life. Let me explain, the cantaloupes that we harvested were so sweet that they tasted like a piece of candy. The fragrance of the fruit smelled heavenly. My kids said that even the green rind was delicious.

Next year, we plan to devote more garden space to this variety of cantaloupe that was purchased as starters from Dammann's Garden Center. We discovered these cantaloupes purely serendipitously after our neighbor told us about the 10 cent tomato sale that Dammann was having. Although we missed the bargain tomatoes, we discovered a vast array of healthy plants with a knowledgeable and helpful staff.

We gathered togher a flat of flowers for the front porch containers. The front porch continers are usually the first planting of the season. It provides a sense of instant gratification to view beautiful plants at the doorstep. As we were waiting in the long lines (usually a good sign in bad times of quality and value), a guy in a baseball cap and jeans was excited about planting these canteloupes. He sold me. I grabbed one small nursery pot of cantaloupe starters and really didn't think about it much.

Fast forward 90 days and the most perfect specimines of cantaloupes grew along our chainlink fence. Prettier and more semetircally than melon that I had ever seen. When it was slightly yellow and easy to pull from the vine we picked it the day after a soaking rain. We thought that we were just going to "sample" the fruit. But, we just sat there and gorged the thing to the rinds and then we cut another one. Yum!