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“Watermelon Blues”

By Glenda Harbison

I call my plants by the name of the person who gave them to me. Aunt Eva Nell irises, Grandmother buttercups, and a Mamaw bush grace my yard. My mother has a shrub we call Mrs. NeSmith and an old tire full of pachysandra, which I stubbornly call the Ann plant. I am currently attempting to continue the line of an heirloom yellow-meated watermelon we like to call Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben was Grandma’s brother, well known around Logan, Alabama, for his "yeller-meated" watermelons.

It began when I asked for a few watermelon seeds. My mother took a plastic bag labeled "Uncle Ben" out of the freezer and gave me a handful, which I slipped into my jeans pocket. My first error in watermelon husbandry was to wash my jeans without removing the seeds.

Armed with more seeds, I planted four hills at the end of the garden. Seedlings popped up and beginner’s luck was kind. As they grew, I couldn’t keep my hands off. I thumped and thumped, but I never could hear that "hollow" sound the old-timers talk about. Impulsively, I snatched one and took it to the house. Ugh. Uncle Ben would have pronounced it "green as a gourd." I slung the thing into the hayfield and a few days later, I nabbed a second one. Riper but still inedible, it flew in the direction of its rotting brother. On the third try, I found a reasonably ripe melon to cut. The important thing was, I managed to save the seeds.

The second year started out perfectly. Blossoms morphed into tiny melons that quickly grew into large ones. Determined to learn from last year’s mistakes, I dawdled too long and let them get mushy. Rotten, to be exact. In early August, I held my nose and spooned out a few precious seeds.

Then came the third year. After a season of careful cultivation, I believed the crop to be a complete success. Late one afternoon, I thumped and examined the dried blossom ends and chose the melon I would pick the next morning. How could I have known that the local coyotes had also been monitoring the maturity of my melons? Their midnight raid left every last Uncle Ben gnawed down to a stub or two of rind. I spied a few slimy seeds from the leftovers and scooped them into an empty margarine tub.

The Uncle Bens will not die out on my watch. I have a new plan. It came to me when I was thinking about a day when Grandpa and I were fishing with Uncle Ben. Bored with watching my cork bob, I thought up a little fish psychology.

"Fish, go away and do NOT bite my bait! I do not WANT to catch you today!" I sang out. Grandpa and Uncle Ben did not approve of this noisy outburst, but laughed heartily when a fat bream jerked on my line.

The same reverse psychology should work on the watermelon project. In just a few weeks, I’ll take my seeds from the freezer. I won’t even prepare the ground. I’ll just scuff out an indention with the heel of my tennis shoe and sling in a few seeds. With the same dusty shoe, I’ll scrape the soil back on top of the seeds and stomp it a couple of times to pack it down. In an authoritative voice, I will bellow, "Watermelons, don’t you DARE grow! Coyotes, COME ON BACK!"

You know, I have a pretty good feeling about this year….

Glenda Harbison is a freelance writer from Cullman.