Watermelons are in the gourd family and for some reason this watermelon plant grew melons in gourd shapes. I haven't opened any of these yet to see what the meat is like but I may save the seeds .

I picked a fresh watermelon this morning and am eating some with my breakfast. I'm thinking as it gets colder maybe I should pick them and store them in the garage before the frost ruins them. The vines have died back. I still have eggplants, green tomatoes, swiss chard, green beans and small cantaloupes in the garden. My brocolli and cabbage are just starting out and there are a few late sunflowers just starting to bloom. I've been getting a few figs and the trees are all doing well. Now, I'm starting to prepare the soil for next years garden and hope to have a much bigger garden. I want to plant more sunflowers and millet for the chickens. Any patches of bermuda grass that are coming up I'm going to nurture for pasture grazing for the chickens.

There was an old wisdom that if you had some land and planted nut trees you could pay property taxes with the cash crop. I can remember when I was younger I knew several people who had either fruit or nut trees and I was envious when they got their crops. I plant my trees with hope that they will provide well for me. I would like to get more pomegranates planted as currently they are selling for around $2.00 a piece in the markets. There is a home in Kingman that has maybe 100 pomegranate trees surrounding their property. I'm guessing that on a good year they get about 100 fruits from each mature tree @ $1.00 a fruit that's $10,000. That is pretty good tax money and pomegranates are not fragile like some fruits. They are good keepers.