We were COMPLETELY SHOCKED! The WATERMELON and SWEET CORN are READY for HARVEST!

hey everybody welcome back to living traditions homestead well today we are out in our corn and watermelon garden this entire garden is growing only those two things and we've got some exciting news to share with you we were expecting the watermelon and the corn to be ready for harvest at the same time and we were expecting it to be in about 10 days to two weeks but we came out to the garden the other day just about two days ago to check on everything because honestly this garden we don't come out to very often because it's just kind of sitting here growing and being watered and waiting for harvest day so we came out about two days ago and we were shocked to see first of all humongous watermelons and one of them was already to be picked and i think by today there might be even more once we saw that we actually had a watermelon ready to be harvested because the watermelon and the corn are about on the same time frame we decided we should probably check the corn and to our surprise some of the corn is ready to harvest yeah in fact quite a bit of it is ready to harvest initially we thought it was just going to be a few random ears but as we started looking there is a lot of corn to be picked now a lot of you warned us early in the season that maybe we planted too much corn we'll see how we feel about it when we're done picking it this year but we planted 16 50 foot rows of the peaches and cream sweet corn because not only do we want to be able to eat it fresh and we want to be able to give some to family and neighbors but we also want to be able to can and preserve a lot of sweet corn for over the winter so let's take a walk around the garden we're going to start with the watermelons sarah is going to show you how to tell when a watermelon is ripe and ready to pick this year we're growing two types of watermelons one is called crimson sweet and these are the watermelons here they're nice circular basketball sized watermelons this is our first year growing crimson suite but they come highly recommended so we have 150 foot row of the crimson suite but we also have another type of watermelon that we're growing the other variety are these bigger watermelons more oblong they're called strawberry watermelon we grew these last year they're so fantastic the flavor of them is so good we've got another 50 foot row of these guys and we're excited to see if we have any more that are ripe to pick today so i want to show you guys a really easy way to tell when the watermelons are ripe for picking there are a lot of old wives tales or folklore ways to tell if your watermelons are ripe but what we've discovered this way it's pretty foolproof and has been successful for us whenever we've grown watermelon so the first thing that you need to do is find the stem end of the watermelon so here's the stem and it's connected here to like the branch you know and right next to it right across from it is this little tendril see out here has a little curly q on the end here when this tendril or curly q is dried up all the way down to the stem the watermelon is ready to be harvested so this tendril is very green this watermelon is nowhere near right for the picking so let's go try to find one that is ripe so we can pick it [Music] it could be ready even though it's pretty small this one's ready [Music] i think this little one is ready [Music] wait just that one you said that one that one that one really this one could probably be picked or it could probably go another couple days well if they can go a couple days we need to let them go a couple days right [Music] this one should probably go another day or two but not much more than that [Music] this one remarkably is not well here's one of the strawberry watermelons that is definitely ripe let me show you the tendril so here's the big watermelon this the stem comes down here here's the tendril you can't see the curlicue because it's already dried and fallen off but it is dry and brown all the way to the stem part here so i'm going to harvest this i'm just going to cut it off at the stem pull this away and set it aside we can try this tonight oh it sounds good i can't wait well it looks like there are several of these ready of both kinds so we're just gonna start picking them i saw a couple of the crimson sweets over here that are ready to pick one's a little bit on the smaller side but it definitely looks ready and then there's just a really nice size one just next to it over here it's on the small side but its tendril is dried up [Music] i'm excited to try this guy [Music] look at that that is a nice watermelon put that here for now [Music] all right spark's trying not to trip on all these vines [Music] this one's ready small but ready you know this will be nice when we give some to like some of our friends that are older you know just a mere older married couple this would be a really nice size for them not too much but they'll still be able to taste that nice fresh summertime watermelon flavor i'm excited to share let's see what else we have [Music] start carrying them over i want to give you a quick update especially because you're seeing me lift watermelons about two months ago actually about seven weeks ago yesterday i had surgery i had a hysterectomy and so i've been i've been on some physical restrictions that hasn't allowed me to that hasn't allowed me to do any lifting and limiting my pushing and pulling well today i met with a surgeon and i'm completely cleared to return to my normal work like i've just been you know laying around doing nothing but now i can resume all of my work and i don't have to worry about injuring my myself thank you guys so much for keeping me accountable for watching over me and making sure that i wasn't doing what i wasn't supposed to be doing and for praying for me i appreciate it so i'm all better and i'm feeling fantastic so 13 watermelons on our first picking of 2020 that's pretty fantastic but what's even more fantastic is the number of watermelons that are still in the watermelon patch just waiting to finish ripening so we can pick those and just eat the heck out of watermelons this summer we're so excited but that's not all we're excited about in this nice garden the other thing is our sweet corn we have never tried really tried to grow sweet corn this year we gave it a really good shot and i think it's gonna turn out well so let's head over to the corn and see what we can find all right let's take a look at the sweet corn now again this year we grew 16 50 foot rows of the peaches and cream sweet corn this is a variety that we were told does really well in our area and it looks like it lived up to that because it is doing great now i'll be honest with you guys we picked about a dozen ears last night and the night before just to eat fresh we had mom and dad over for dinner and we put some on the grill and it was fantastic so i'm gonna pick an ear and show you guys kind of how to tell when it's ready and see what it looks like so when you're looking at your corn you can see some of the ears especially these little ears now the peaches and cream seem to get two ears per stalk so on a lot of these it looks like the top ear is ready and the bottom here isn't quite as big yet so we're trying to leave the bottom ones but you can see like on this there's still some green on the silk so that tells me that that is not ready to be picked yet but if you look like on an ear like this here now i've already picked a lot off this front row so this this ear here all of the tassels are dried up and when you touch them they basically fall right off that tells me that that ear is ready to pick so let's pick that one and take a look at it now i do want to tell you that we do not spray our corn we don't use any chemicals in our corn patch at all so we do have some worms in our corn they tend to be in the top a little bit which is no big deal to just cut off and that way we know we're eating good organic corn so i'm going to peel this open and there is there's a little bugger right there at the tip but let's take a look at this you can see i guess i'll just peel this one all the way you can see how beautiful those kernels of corn are now again you know some bug damage up here but no big deal most of this corn after we're kind of full of eating it fresh most of this we're going to be cutting off the cob and preserving for the winter either by canning or by freezing so we'll just cut that part off no big deal and then we'll cut the rest of the kernels off but look how great that corn looks and i can tell you guys this is absolutely delicious now if you're still wondering whether or not it's ready to harvest after you've picked some what you can do is you can also take a knife or your fingernail and you can poke into the kernels and you can see that it comes out a milky color that tells you that that is ripe if it wasn't ripe and ready to pick it would come out clear so this looks perfect we're gonna hopefully pick 60 ears tonight because sarah thinks that's what we're going to need for dinner tomorrow plus for her to can her first batch of corn for the summer so we're going to get busy we're hoping we can get 60 ears picked in the next little while um we're going to try to work by the row so that we don't forget where we left off so i think we're probably going to pick about two rows tonight [Music] so [Music] we picked two full rows and then we went back over the rows that we already picked the other day now we didn't pick everything on the two new rows we left probably a third of what was there because it wasn't quite ready and we ended up with about 75 ears off those two let's let's call it three rows i guess about 75 years so i think that's really good we're going to pack this up and take it all back up to the house by our picnic tables and then we're going to cut one of these watermelons and taste some of the corn and show you guys how delicious this is we're back up at the house and it's time to do some sampling so we're going to try tonight one of the crimson sweet watermelons now this is a variety we've never grown before so this is going to be the very first time we're trying one as well the strawberry we grew last year and we've already eaten one this year and i can tell you the flavor is amazing so good but the only downside is they do have a lot of seeds now personally i don't care but i do know that you know when you're selling at a farmers market or things like that people do prefer well they really prefer the seedless which we don't grow seedless watermelons are supposed to have seeds but they would prefer ones that don't have a ton of seeds and these really do so we're anxious to see whether or not these do and how they taste so i think this this is a beautiful looking watermelon we're gonna just go ahead and cut it in half and see how it looks wow that looks good very good yeah look at that all right definitely seeds in there definitely seeds in there but let's taste it and see doesn't look like maybe as many seeds oh my gosh it looks so sweet yeah it's so juicy guys let's take a slice off of here now both the crimson sweet seeds and the strawberry watermelon seeds that we have are from baker creek heirloom seed company they're a wonderful company they've been very good to us and they have provided us with some amazing seeds and they're right near us yeah only about uh less than a half hour drive from our from our house so all right there's only one way to know if it's a good watermelon that's to try it juicy really sweet really sweet very good yeah yeah i think it's i think it's just as good as the strawberry you know from watermelon to watermelon there's going to be a little bit of difference this is very good i think the strawberry watermelon might have a little bit more watermelon flavor yeah but these are really fantastic the other thing that's really good about these crimson sweet watermelons is that they're not so big if you don't have a big family or if it's just you know the two of you i think that this is a really good size to grow for a smaller family or for just a couple or a retired couple last year on the strawberry watermelons our biggest one weighed just under 30 pounds it was like 29 and a half pounds so those are big watermelons i don't think this year they're nearly that large but they're just as prolific i'm not sure what the difference is i think our summer was quite a bit hotter this year so far so maybe that played some role in it i don't know all right we took the watermelon in the house i'm pretty sure the kids are eating the rest of the entire watermelon right now but that's okay so we're going to move on to trying some of the corn now again this is the peaches and cream sweet corn let me peel this shuck it now see this one barely has any worm damage at all just a tiny bit at the tip personally i would rather deal with some of the worms and grow things organically than to uh you know poison all the worms and potentially poison us as well so but that's everybody's decision you do what you think is best for your family and your situation all right i've got that all shucked and we're just going to cut that tip off where the worm damage is and you know what the pigs love it so we'll save that for the pigs let me get some more of that silk off there and look just look how beautiful that is corn is that is amazing now when you are harvesting sweet corn from your own garden and it's this fresh you know you don't even really have to boil it it's just so tender and so sweet you can just eat it right off the cob just fresh now it is better if it's hot and steamy with some butter just drenched on there and salt maybe a little bit of black pepper but you can just try it just like this and it's so good that's what i'm gonna do yeah that is not good super sweet that's amazing you guys no wonder the raccoons like it so much speaking of raccoons yeah one of the reasons we decided to start harvesting we were going to try to wait another week even though we thought it was about ready we were like maybe we should wait another week and see if the kernels get bigger which i don't think they need to but one of our neighbors let us know that they lost their entire patch of sweet corn every single stock two raccoons just a couple nights ago so that made me think you know what i'm not gonna put it off anymore we're gonna get busy harvesting because it's not you know we're growing enough that it's not a one day process it's gonna be over the course of like the next week that we can pick all of this and get it put up for winter so i've learned that lesson in the past that you procrastinate you think oh maybe i'll just wait a little bit longer and then all of a sudden the raccoons get them yeah and we had that happen with peaches one piece one piece last year we had our very first peach on our tree we put our trees in about four years ago and it had the very first peach we ever had that made it to like maturity and sir and i both looked at it we thought you know what we're gonna leave it one more day and we'll pick it tomorrow morning we came out the next morning it was laying on the ground and like half of it was gone eaten by a raccoon and we thought we should have brought it in the house and we should have you know let it ripen on the counter we learned our lesson we learned our lesson we sure did so from now on no more procrastinating look at this beautiful corn you guys this is amazing so the next week or so of our lives we'll be picking and chucking and canning corn eating watermelon i've been showing on instagram all the tomatoes that we've been harvesting and the girls and i have been canning so we are busy here on the homestead but you know this is what it's all about for us and it's just all the hard work is coming to fruition and we're able to reap what we've sown we're so blessed we're so thankful and uh so we're real really happy to be busy we'd love to hear from you guys how are your gardens doing are you starting to put up a ton of stuff for winter as well i know this is the time of year you just you feel so overwhelmed but in you know december and january when you're opening those cans and thinking my gosh we grew this it's such a rewarding feeling you guys thanks so much for spending time with us again today as we harvested and tasted some of the first fruits of the watermelon and the corn we hope you enjoyed it make sure that you are sharing our videos on all your social media because that's the best way that you can help us and until next time thank you so much for stopping by our homestead take care and god bless god bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 740,035

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing, organic gardening, growing sweetcorn, gorwing sweet corn, growing sweet corn, growing watermelons

Id: zbf7d14yVRc

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020