This year, I asked jal_ut for his watermelon seeds when he was offering them, and had three plants started, but one of them got mauled by slugs.
Eventually one fruit started to develop and I really hoped to be able to say I grew one. But after it got to be about 10" long, it developed blossom end rot. I held off until the end sunk in and the shell adjacent to the black end started to show signs of shriveling, then decided bugs and slugs will hasten the spoilage and reluctantly cut it off the vine, but I couldn't bring myself to chuck it, so I cut off the damaged 2" from the blossom end (it smelled wonderfully like watermelon) and put it in the fridge to decide what to do.
3 days later, today, I decided to seed and use the flesh in a mixed fruit smoothie, but when I cut it open I realized that the interior was much more pink than I had thought and the seeds were mature -- so I tasted it, and it was sweet! Not meltingly sweet, but passably sweet. I offered the slices to the kids, saying if they're not good enough then it could still become a smoothie. But they voted the flavor GOOD and ate up the little melon.
Too bad it didn't have one more week to ripen fully. Definitely trying again next year and planning a bigger and better watermelon patch.
