Harvesting Watermelons & Trying a New Cucumber Variety

Village Farm Team,

We were finally able to make our first watermelon harvest this week! We’ve been anxiously awaiting this second succession after the first didn’t succeed due to excess rainfall. Our watermelon harvest was predominantly made up of the Sugar Baby variety though there were a few of the Crimson Sweet variety we were able to harvest as well. Crimson Sweet (the melon on the left) is more of a classic watermelon with dark and light green stripes and pink flesh. Sugar Baby (the melon on the right) is a smaller “icebox” variety with dark green skin and a sweeter flavor. We should have a small number of watermelons available for you at the veggie wagon this Saturday.

The cucumber harvest continued this week giving us three different varieties: Tasty Jade (left), Corinto (middle), and Tasty Green (right). Each of these varieties are slicing cucumbers that are great for snacking or adding to salads. We’ve also got a new variety we’ll be harvesting soon called “Poona Kheera”. Originally from Poona, India, this cucumber variety turns from white to yellow to brown as it matures. Poona Kheera can be harvested and eaten during any of these stages and has a lovely, crisp texture. Once it reaches the stage where the skin turns brown, it resembles a large russet potato! We’re eager to share this new variety with you.

We planted another succession of zucchini which brings us up to five so far for the season! Two rows were transplanted while four rows were direct-seeded. For this succession we stuck with the Dunja and Tigress varieties because they have performed incredibly well this summer. We also added Green Machine to the mix to see how it compares to the others. Once these plants get to the harvesting stage, we’ll be able to turn under our last succession to make way for cool season crops.