The Tale of Five Watermelon

 Once upon a time, there were five watermelons growing.

I know how the story begins, but not how it ends. Powdery Mildew has invaded my garden and that combined with three weeks with less than a total of an inch of rain, has taken a toll on my squash. 

I was set to have a lot of pumpkins, but only one survived. I'm still letting the plant roots remain, though. If my plants had time to produce one pumpkin by August, maybe there's still time for one by October. We'll see. 

In the meantime, here are the five watermelons on their own hero's journey.

Here's the itty bitty baby watermelon, about the size of a dime:

Here's the next size up; it's still pretty tiny:

Watermelon 3 (I like the stripes it's developing.)

Here is watermelon 4. You can see the yellowed blighted leaf. I must have picked hundreds of them out of my garden. 

Watermelon 5 - this one is the size of a softball.

And here is my pumpkin that matured during the powdery mildew blight:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for rain!