Our Biggest Watermelon Harvest Ever

Today, Chris Sasser is finally letting us harvest his portion of the garden, the melon patch. I have had my eye on this for a really long time and he has been saying, no, no, no, no, no. They're not ready yet. Let's not pick them yet. No, no, no. I don't like it when he uses that word. You know, I don't like that word. Well, I think they're finally ready, some of them at least. Yes, and we still have some that are just putting on fruit, some of these vines, so we should get watermelons throughout the rest of the summer. Right now, it is the beginning of August here in zone 7b where we live and we planted these probably back in April, May? I can't remember. Sometime around then. We did it with y'all, so you can go back and watch it if you want to, but today we're finally harvesting, so let's get to it. We're going to start with our Moon and Stars yellow-fleshed watermelon. Now, this is a seed that we got last year from a sweet fan who came to one of my concerts. We grew these for the first time last year and then this year, we decided to plant them again. So, that's the fun thing about growing from seed. You can do a whole lot with just one seed packet and make it last multiple seasons. So, here's how you know that it is ready to harvest. What you want to do is find the vine that the plant is attached to and find the closest tendril, which is this right here. You want that tendril to be completely dry and shriveled up. Another sign that the watermelon is ready is it should feel heavier, oh my gosh, than it looks and it should have a big yellow spot on the underside of it. So, that one, holy moly, I literally got dirt into my mouth, is ready. So, I think it's time to pick it. All right, I've been waiting a long time for this. Oh my gosh, we're gonna weigh this because I swear this is close to 30 pounds. I bet it is 25 at least. That is the biggest watermelon I think I've ever seen. I would like to enter the county fair with this puppy right here. That's huge. Now, are you sure that this is the yellow fleshed or does it have red on the inside? I'm positive because it has the yellow spots and it came from a vine that has the yellow spots. Gotcha, okay. All right, well, let's put this down and keep going. I think this one is either a jubilee or maybe it's that all sweet, but we also planted a variety of seedless this year and I can't remember where we planted what, so it'll be a mystery when we cut into it and see, but next I want to get a cantaloupe. There's some more big watermelons over here. See if you can check the tendrils on those because they might not all get as big as some of those over there. So, this one I don't think will be ready. Yeah, that's definitely not ready. I mean that is a tendril and it's dry. That might be one of our seedless. There's also supposed to be a trick with like your fingers, but I don't know. Do we want to just try them? Yeah, I think that's ready. I'm gonna have to just trust you on it. It makes me so nervous to grow stuff for this long and it not be ready, but that is a pretty big white spot and I'm glad we did because in the very end. Yeah, it's starting to rot. So, we'll see if it's ready. You just kind of walk through the middle. I'll walk on the, I'll walk along the edge and tell me if you see one. Oh, there's a humongous one right here. Okay. A couple big ones. There's another one over here that's a totally different shape. Oh, it's come, it's already come disconnected. Oh, it's round from the vine. I love that one. I don't know when it came detached, but it's still good. I guess hopefully it got big enough. I don't know. Oh, it did. I think that those are supposed to be. Okay, you want me to toss it to you? I think that might be the jubilee. No, we grew jubilee last year. Those are oblong. Okay, this might be the all-sweet or the seedless. I bet it's a seedless. You want me to toss it to you? Yes, let me put my phone down. Gotta admit, you've never been much of an athlete, so this makes me really nervous. Good throw. Thanks. Look at that little round one. I like that. You see another one? I think so. I'm trying to find the tendril. Yeah, there's the tendril. It's completely dried up. Should we do it? Are we just going to harvest them all? I mean, yeah, if the tendril's dry. All right, pick it. Not a huge yellow spot there. No. I don't know if that one's ready. Well, how are you supposed to know? Roll it over and see the spot. Well, you want it? Here's another round one. Now, see if there's a tendril on that. There is right here, and it's completely dried up. Okay, let's pick it. Oh, look at that yellow spot. Yeah, and that snapped off really good. Are we going to cut multiple of these open tonight and taste them to see the variety difference? We have to try one of each variety for sure. I think so. That is cute. I love those. To the wheelbarrow. Now, this one doesn't look like huge, but the vine is ripped and shredded. I mean, it's already basically picked. I don't know if that's from us walking around in here. Well, it does have an okay yellow spot. It does. It might surprise us. I mean, not all watermelons are supposed to be gigantor. What are they? Gigantor. Is that a made-up word? Maybe, but you know exactly what I mean. We still have to get to our cantaloupe too. I know. I see three, at least three cantaloupe that are ready. You want to keep doing watermelons, or do you want to go ahead and grab some cantaloupe? Let's finish the watermelon first. And we are leaving some behind that I think will continue to ripen. This one is rotten right here. We need to use that for the chickens. Yeah, the chickens love watermelon. So, whenever we have rotten ones, we always give them to the girls. So, we just found another one of these little round ones, and looky here. That tendril is as green as it can be. So, that one is definitely not ready to pick, but there may be more melons in here. I see another watermelon. I see two right there. Two right there. You want to see if you can check for those tendrils? There's a massive watermelon. Oh my gosh, that one's huge. Oh, what are we going to do with all these? Check these first. Maybe you can make some like watermelon jelly. Yeah, I absolutely can. I did that last year. It was good. I mean, look, that's dry. Kind of roll it over a little bit, and let's see if it has any spot. Let's try it. Okay. Here, you hold it. That one's light. So, I don't know if that's a good sign or a bad sign. Probably a bad sign. This tendril's all dried up. This one's a little bit bigger. Well, all we can do is try. All right. Excuse all the weeds. That was our corn grid, and we still have to retill that for the fall. Yeah, I'm planning on doing, I think I want to do cabbage and maybe broccoli in here. I've never grown either of those things, so I'm really excited to try. Our squash and zucchini grid up there is looking really good, but we'll show you that in another video. Yeah, we'll have a big squash harvest here soon, I think. Okay, time to get that massive watermelon. I'm still looking, but yeah, that massive one has got to go. Y'all, we just keep finding them. This is another huge one. Wow. Okay, let's do another once through. Make sure we got all some watermelons before we start on cantaloupes. I found another one. It might be the biggest one yet. It's the biggest one yet? Maybe. Get it, girl. Hold on. Oh, that is a big one. It looks so funny watching you from this far pick that big old watermelon up. That's huge! There's another big one right there. I mean, just when we think that we've gotten all of them, they just are so camouflaged in these vines. Squash bugs! I did not know squash bugs laid their eggs on our watermelon vines. Well, so far it seems like they've not really affected our harvest. Well, no, but that just means there's gonna be more right here. Yeah. Which I don't like. All right, let's see if we can find a tendril on this really big one here. Okay, definitely got a dried up tendril right there. This thing is huge. Seems like it's got a pretty good spot. So these are all the watermelons that we think are ready right now. There's still quite a few growing in the garden, which means we'll get more later, which is even better. But these things are massive. I mean, come look at this compared to the size of my hand or even my foot. Like monstrous. I think this one's even bigger. Yeah, it might be. I wear a size 11 and a half. Yeah. Shoe. And I wear a six. That's crazy. Okay, now we need to get our cantaloupe and there's a bunch that are ready. I've been waiting on those for so long. Okay, I don't like sticking my hand into this mess. Oh, I hope this hasn't split open. It's got flies all around it. Yeah, it's soft. Yeah, it's completely rotten. They all look like that. No, but they're not all rotten. They're not all rotten. They're soft. That one's split right there. It's starting to split. I mean, it smells really sweet. They said online that these aren't supposed to be harvested if you can see any green at all. But yeah, I mean, that's that's so ripe at burst is what happened. This was a perfectly good cantaloupe. We probably waited like two days too long. And we need to get that one out too because the girls love cantaloupe, so we'll at least feed it to the girls. Okay, let's make a pile of the rotten ones. I think we're still going to get some. It smells so good. That next one doesn't look rotten to me. Okay. Okay, over here. It's another one. It's a little green. That one might not have been ready yet. That's got to be ready. I mean, it's squishy right there. Is it? Yeah, I think any longer and it would have been mush like the other. Okay. I think that one's good. Okay. Yeah, one side looks really yellow and then the other side flip it over. It's kind of green, but we don't want them to rot. So no, let's go ahead and get that one. This one is rotten. Yeah. Well, okay, here's a bunch over here. So here's what we're looking at right here. This cantaloupe has got nice textured skin, but you can still see green throughout it, which I feel like when you buy cantaloupes from the store, that's what they look like. They don't look peachy. No, they're supposed to be like this. And people said that you could get down and smell it and it would smell ripe. Well, that one already came off the vine. It's a little molded on that one side. Maybe we can cut it off. Where is it molded? All that white stuff. Oh, that under there is like the skin has started to erode. See, well, we can probably wash it off right now and cut it up. Okay. The cantaloupe harvest was a little underwhelming compared to the watermelons, but we still got, I think six usable cantaloupes. So let's get these out. And then before Chris and I dive in, because we're about to lose light, let's go feed the chickens. And we also still have several that are still on the vine. We can't decide. Emily thinks this is ready because it's a lot of white, but I think since you see some green, it's not ready, but it's probably my fault that a lot of these have rotten. Thank you. So let us know down in the comments, if you guys have any tips and advice for us on how to know if the cantaloupe is ready, because obviously we are not experts in this. I feel like the watermelon, a lot of people have told us about the tendril and the spots, but cantaloupe, we're getting some rotten ones. So obviously we don't know. All right. We smashed the watermelons and the cantaloupe and we woke the girls up. They were in bed already. And we opened up the doors and some, I mean, they all came out and ate, but you can tell they're not feasting like they would be in the morning because it's their bedtime. But we'll let them have fun for as long as they want to before the sun goes down. And then we'll put these in their coop. That way they have them in the morning when they wake up. All right. We're back inside and we are going to cut these open and see what we get and do a taste test and let you know what we think is the most delish. So we have all three varieties that we think we grew. This is moon and stars, yellow flesh. I think this is all sweet. Is that the seedless? It could be our seedless. I think that's probably the seedless right there because we busted one of these open for the chickens and it had seeds. Why are we doing this? I have the seed packets. Well, you still won't know which is which, right? Yeah. I think we'll kind of know because there is a picture on the packet. Let's see what we planted. Unless we threw them away. Well, that's also a possibility. Okay. I only thought that I was smart. I'm in fact not. If I had to guess, I would think that the little small round one is going to be our seedless. This is going to be more of your traditional, you say we planted jubilee? We did plant some jubilee. That's where I'm kind of- I think this is a jubilee. Torn because I know the jubilee is oblong. Let me do one look through. Okay. No. So the all sweet, we planted these. All sweet is oblong. Okay. So that could be all sweet or it could be jubilee. So we might have some all sweet and some jubilee out in the garage. So we're not sure which one this one is. Judging by the look of this right here. Yes. That one's out there, but we didn't harvest it yet. It wasn't ready. Yeah. So I think this is our jubilee. Agreed. This should be our seedless, the small round one. And then we have our moon and stars, which you're thinking yellow flesh. I thought it was going to be red. No, it's going to be yellow. Okay. Let's cut them open. Okay. Moment of truth. Nervous. Should I cut it right in the middle? Yeah. Sorry. That's kind of a puny knife. I used our other knives cooking your supper tonight. Oh no. I can't tell. I don't think so. Really? I don't think it's going to be good. That's beautiful. No. A little longer. It's not? A little longer. It's not bad. Oh my gosh. I can't ever make him happy with watermelon. No, it's good. This is pretty good. Let me cut a piece for both of us. You seriously don't think that that's good enough? It tastes pretty good. You see how much white rind there is? Okay. It would be a little bit less than that. Let's try it. I think what we'll do next year is we'll just leave them out there until they rot and then they'll be ready. So this was seeded. You're not waiting on me, are you? That is delicious to me. Oh my gosh. Oh my goodness, that is delicious. It's good. Very good. Why were you over there and it's not ready? I think it could have gone a little bit longer. Just a little bit, but it is good. It's delicious. That's fabulous. It's good. Very good. Okay. Are we ready to try the next one? Yeah. So we're thinking this is going to be our seedless. Yes. What's it called again? Don't know. So it had a dried tendril, even though it's really small and round, and it's got a pretty good yellow spot, which people on Facebook told us that means it's ready. I just want to keep eating the other one. That is delicious. That looks really good. It is our seedless. I think it's pretty good. Okay. Ready to try this one? Yes. I think I want to like the seedless the best because not only is it seedless, but also it's not monstrous. Yeah. Like it's a good serving size for the two of us. This is going to be a lot of watermelon. We're going to be foundered on it. Oh my gosh. That looks so good. Before, wait, we need to rate this one. Do you need another bite of this one first? Out of 10? Out of 10. What was the Jubilee? Seven. I'm going to get another little bite. I already know. Seven. Seven out of 10. I think seven out of 10 is right. I give it any less than seven. This looks really good. For the seedless, that's sweeter. You can see it's a little darker too. Barely. The texture of this one is different than that other one. Yeah. I like the texture of the other one better. Really? This has a firmer texture. The Jubilee has more of like a, I don't know what the word is, but did you eat both pieces? Do you want more? Well, yeah. You said you didn't like it as much. What do you rate this one? I mean, it's good, but honestly, six. Really? I think it's sweeter. What do you rate it? I give it probably an eight out of 10. Wow. Okay. Are you going to do the honors? Oh, I didn't think you would love me. Yes, I would love to. Do not cut yourself. No promises. Making me nervous. I can't tell if it's going to be any good. It's huge. I know. You were right. It's yellow fleshed. It's beautiful. Wow. I think this is going to be the sweetest of them all. Me first? Actually, we'll wait. We'll go at the same time. Oh, that is very kind of you. The yellow flesh always makes me like, is it going to taste different or is it the same? Different, but in a better way. Cheers. Okay. What are your thoughts? Tastes like cotton candy. I need another. And it's room temperature right now. All these are going to taste so much better after they've been in the fridge. That's true. Another for you? Yeah. That's my favorite one, I think. Really? Me too. It is a different flavor than the red. I don't know if it is. It has like a sweeter. Someone else, the other, that was annoying. It has like a sweeter aftertaste-ish. I don't know. Someone the other day said online that it doesn't have a different taste, that it is the same, but it just throws you off because you're looking at it. So let's see if you can tell the difference. Vine folded. No particular order. Ready? Try this one first. Don't look. Not looking. Don't look. I'm not looking. Jubilee. You want to taste a different one before you decide? Okay. Don't look. Not looking. That was a jubilee. Okay. Before you make your final decision, that was two. Here's your third. Don't look. I'm watching her eyes. That was the yellow flesh. The one in the middle was the, wait, no, the first one was seedless, second was a jubilee, and third was yellow. Okay. You got those two wrong, but you did get the yellow flesh. Well, then it tastes different, obviously. Okay. Now we need to try our cantaloupe. All right. So we harvested one of these cantaloupes that was kind of rotten on one side, but we're trying to save it. So we're going to just- Wow. It looks gorgeous on the inside. I'm just going to throw that part away. Well, could you save it for the girls? Yeah. Thanks. We need a spoon, don't we? Yeah. Wow. The color, the texture. This is perfect. It's, whoa, sorry. It smells so good. I love cantaloupe. Wow. You want me to cut you a little slice or? Sure. I'd love a slice. I am the luckiest girl in the world. You want to taste it together? Ready? After we say cheese. That was cheesy. Okay. Oh, cheers. Perfect. Perfect. Don't you just love the texture of a cantaloupe? Or do you like watermelon? Like this is like a softer texture, you know? No, this one kind of mushes in your mouth. I prefer watermelon, but it is delicious. It's not mush. It's like a firm soft. I don't know what that means. Now we got to decide what to do with all this stuff. So if you want to see if we turn any of these watermelons into watermelon lemonade concentrate or watermelon jelly, or who knows what else we can come up with, please consider subscribing and joining our family here at the Sasser House. We want to thank you so much for spending time out of your busy schedule with us, and we will see you on the next one. Bye y'all.