June 2009: Tomatoes and watermelons

According to family lore, my first word was "watermelon". I know it's hard to believe, and although I'm sure it was poorly enunciated, I've seen a couple baby books that verify it . . . if not in letter, in spirit (one baby book has it has my first word, while another has it as my second word . . . after "Mama.") The most frequent (the only?) explanation I've heard is that my paternal grandfather frequently ate them on weekends while I was around at a young age.

At the very least, I think it's fair to say that watermelon was on my mind from a very early stage. Since then, I came across a picture of my great-great grandfather who's seated with his wife and daughter to each side, and he's holding a giant watermelon in his lap. So I feel a sort of spiritual kinship to the fruit, making this year especially triumphant when we got at least 3 or 4 full sized watermelons out of the garden. (Whereas last year it was only one small watermelon.)

Here's how crazy the watermelon plants were starting to get -- beginning at the foot of the tomatoes and extending out the bottom of the photograph.

Now, these aren't nearly as exciting, but here are some tomatoes, with a bell pepper snuck in.