Keeping Up With the Cantaloupes

This year we planted a different variety of cantaloupe. In the past we planted a much smaller variety called “Sweet N Early.” It was really convenient to harvest a small fruit that you could hold in one hand — especially since cantaloupe isn’t my favorite fruit. 

When it came time to order seeds for this year, we went to Johnny’s and chose Earlichamp, since it has a short growing season. It’s doing very well, despite the drought:

The trouble is that we now have these gigantic melons that are all ripening at the same time. It’s one thing when you have a bunch of little personal-sized ones, but it’s not possible for us to eat these fast enough. 

The ones that are splitting we’ve been tossing to the chickens, though if they’re not too far gone, we cut off the good half to keep:

If you look closely, you’ll notice that the yellow jackets also really like cantaloupe. They aren’t too hard to work around since these melons aren’t right outside their nest, but it’s another good reason to keep on top of the harvest the best we can.

To do that, we’ve been having melons for breakfast and dinner. I like them best wrapped in prosciutto, but the kids prefer them plain. 

Next year I think we might go back to a smaller melon for a more manageable crop, but it’s nice to have at least one thing doing really well this season!