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chance
 Posted:
Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:24 pm |
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SQUARE WATERMELONS
Square Watermelons
Japanese grow square melons
By Jan Arnold, For the Mirror
My good friend, Roger, always sends me interesting e-mails. His latest one was another gem. It seems that Japanese growers have found a way to produce square watermelons.
Why, you might ask. Well, in the store, round or oval watermelons have to be placed just so in a bin so that they don’t tumble down and start an avalanche.
Get them home and place them in the fridge and you usually have to prop them between a jar of mayonnaise and last night’s leftovers or else they roll all over.
Cutting into them isn’t easy, either.
To remedy the situation, while the melon is still small and growing on the vine, Japanese growers put a large square glass mold around the melon. The glass mold is in two parts.
The mold is secured so that it won’t open up and they wait for the melon to grow, ripen and turn into a square.
The e-mail said that the square melons sell for about $85 in Japan and the regular ones cost about $25.
Speaking of strange fruit, have you seen the “doughnut hole” peaches? They’re a small, squatty peach that has an indentation in the middle giving it the appearance of a doughnut. I haven’t tried them (they’re a tad costly), but they are cute.
One plant I am trying this summer that is doing extremely well, and it’s heat tolerant, is a silver sage, Salvia argentea. This plant has been growing like crazy.
This variety of sage looks similar to lamb’s ear, which is in the same family.
The ears are more like an elephant’s ears than a lamb’s.
The plant I have started out with ears that measured 4 inches long by 2 inches across. They now measure 12 inches by 12 inches at their widest point. They kind of resemble an extremely fuzzy hosta.
The plant is a Proven Selections by Proven Win-ners so you know it’s a good grower.
Its tag says that it can grow from 12 to 18 inches across and 10 to 14 inches high. My plant is only about 6 inches high so I’m hoping that we’ll have an extended Indian Summer so that I can see its full potential.
Oh, and get this — its trade name is Hobbit’s Foot. No wonder Frodo and Sam could walk up and down so many mountains!
Jan Arnold is a member of the Garden Writers Association. E-mail her at fromygarden@netzero.com or write to her in care of this newspaper.
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Joined: 24 Mar 2006
Posts: 2784
Location: Deep in the heart of Texas
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