Pakwanan na! It is watermelon season once again! So many people in our place are scrambling to be the first one to plant watermelon. But first, they need to harvest rice from their fields before they can start with their watermelon. Unahan na sa pagtatanim ng pakwan sa Barangay Baley-a-daan! Pakwan or Watermelon in english is the main product after harvesting rice in our place.
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.), family Cucurbitaceae) is a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy center (mesocarp and endocarp). Pepos are derived from an inferior ovary, and are characteristic of the Cucurbitaceae. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon – although not in the genus Cucumis – has a smooth exterior rind (usually green with dark green stripes or yellow spots) and a juicy, sweet interior flesh (usually deep red to pink, but sometimes orange, yellow, or white). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon)
Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.), family Cucurbitaceae) is a vine-like (scrambler and trailer) flowering plant originally from southern Africa. Its fruit, which is also called watermelon, is a special kind referred to by botanists as a pepo, a berry which has a thick rind (exocarp) and fleshy center (mesocarp and endocarp). Pepos are derived from an inferior ovary, and are characteristic of the Cucurbitaceae. The watermelon fruit, loosely considered a type of melon – although not in the genus Cucumis – has a smooth exterior rind (usually green with dark green stripes or yellow spots) and a juicy, sweet interior flesh (usually deep red to pink, but sometimes orange, yellow, or white). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon)
It is the start of planting season for watermelon these days in our place and even some of the people there already started planting last month, September, just to be the first to harvest in in late November or early December. By being the first to harvest, they can demand for a higher price to buyers and have a higher income.
How I wish we could also do that but the problem is we still have to wait for my father to finish harvesting rice before my people can start preparing the land for planting watermelon. And this week they just finished harvesting so yesterday we already started clearing the land.
During these days in our area, you could not see any bystander spending their time doing nothing as everyone are very busy doing their chores in planting watermelon. This is because they already know the money that they could earn once they had a good watermelon harvest.
I will be sharing in this blog about the progress of our watermelon!
