Mutations by Willpower
Dreams or hallucinations
I think I’ve gone a bit mad. Last year, I found a Sharkfin melon (Cucurbita ficifolia) long after what I believed was the harvesting window. It was tucked underneath some equally neglected hyssop.
I set the fruit aside in my kitchen until about six weeks ago. I decided to stir fry it for lunch. When I opened it up, a familiar but subtle scent wafted into my nostrils. Watermelon. Yeah, that’s right. I couldn’t believe it, so I ate a chunk, raw, and yeah, a subtle but unmistakable watermelon taste.
I’m probably hallucinating. What are the chances that I stumble into a sweet mutation a year after writing a substack article about such a thing?
Just to check your expectations, the sharkfin-watermelon graft in that article never went anywhere, this is just from a normal seed.
I’ve opened Sharkfin melon before, and I never encountered this smell. Or perhaps I did and I’m still stuck in a waking dream.
The proof I suppose is in the children, so I’m trying to grow out the seed. I did the classic “wet paper towel” method on half of the fresh seed but this failed miserably for reasons I don’t understand. I dried out the other half, soaked it in water for a day and planted it straight out with crossed-fingers. These germinated, though I’m sure the UK heatwave bumped things along.
I have eight more chances now to see if I hallucinated a sweet sharkfin melon into being.
Cross your appendages.
Similar weirdness on my farm, as if the plants are reading my diary and working under cover of darkness to make my horticultural dreams come true.
Appendages crossed!