🌱Gardener's Secrets🌱

Did you know Wild watermelons weren’t sweet, but they were incredibly useful for being a clean water source as well as food for livestock. By purposefully breeding many generations of plants with certain characteristics, the gene for bitterness was eliminated. Soon after, ancient people continued the selective breeding of watermelons to make them easier to get into - no more pounding the hard shell with a rock. BEFORE IT BECAME THE SWEET summertime treat it is today, the watermelon was one foul, functional fruit. In fact, the wild watermelons of ancient times would hardly be recognizable to even the most seasoned Citrullus connoisseurs of today. Firm, seedy, and pale green on the inside, they were characterized by their bland or bitter taste. But despite their rather unpalatable flesh, they were evidently important fruits to keep around. In fact, they were cultivated for hundreds of vears before they began to taste like something worth plating.