Watermelons Growing in San Diego- Crimson Sweet Variety

Crimson Sweet just  3 days apart!

 I love watermelon.  LOVE.  So this year, now that I started garden boxes in a central neighborhood of San Diego, on a canyon with a whole lot of sun, I thought I'd try my hand at growing some.  I forget where I bought the seedling, but it was only 2 bucks.  I tucked it into the corner of one of my raised beds and thought it could grow over the side on onto the grown surrounding the box.  I figured it would be a sprawling plant, but didn't think it would take over the yard... which it did.  I took a few pictures below of the evolution of the watermelon vines.  I didn't take any snaps of them fully growing, but imagine double the size of the larger picture.
Crimson Sweet is the type of watermelon.  20-30 lbs when ripe.  So far, I've picked 4 big watermelons.  Two of them have been super sweet and amazing, the other two were amazing but not as sweet.  All good.  It is a trip having a watermelon with seeds.  Its like I had forgotten that they existed.  I can't remember a supermarket in recent history selling watermelons with seeds. Nutty.  You bet I am saving these seeds for next year.  It is late in August now and I still have several small watermelons growing on the vines, though I don't have high hopes that these will be as good as the first 4.  All in all, I've got about 100lbs of fruit off the one plant. Crazy.  It is possible, by the end of the season, I'll have harvested 200lbs from the one plant.

Crimson Sweet about a month old

Crimson Sweet 2.5 months old

 I'm pretty sure I'll grow these again, but they do go crazy with the vines. Any tips on pruning back watermelon vines?

First melon of the harvest.  (Please ignore the fanny pack and weird hat hair do)

Growing and Eating Padron Peppers in San Diego

Padron Close Up. 

Oh Padrons... it is as if you didn't exist until four years ago. Certainly, I'd never heard of the pepper and that no one else that I knew had a clue these babies existed until this decade.  Maybe I'm wrong.
It wasn't until Suzies Farm, here in SD started putting these guys in their CSA box that I got a first taste.  Admittedly, I wasn't sure what to make of these.  Then all the rage broke loose.  Even my bougiest hippster-esq San Francisco couple featured these guys at their wedding meal.  (Which is also funny when a guest would get one of the hot ones and start squirming and making silly faces.)  So basically this is the pepper to have if you were a foodie in California just three years ago! It is true.
Fast forward to now, and I think the peppers have lost their hip edge and have made it to the masses.  Let's just say that in Santa Rosa, I purchased a big bag of them at the 99 Cents Only store (yes, I'll get a CSA and buy produce at the dollar store).  These peppers made it to the dollar store.  Sure the dollar store was located in the famed Sonoma Valley, but nonetheless it was there.

How To Eat Them:
Best eaten young and under ripe, you can eat them raw for a crunch, or, the best way-- saute them in olive oil until just before blistery but taking on color, and then serve with a generous sprinkle of sea salt.  To eat them, grasp them by the stem and pop it in your mouth whole.  Most are totally mild.  But... beware, you will find a hot one.  Have a cold beer close at hand-- for real.  The hot ones are hot.  As the season gets later, the hot ones will be much more prevalent.

Growing Padrons:
Cruising Walter Anderson's Nursery here in San Diego (everyone cruises garden centers, right?) I couldn't resist the siren call of the Spanish Padron peppers.  Buying two 6-packs was a bit much, but turns out it was just fine.  I put the starts in the garden in April and was getting handfuls of peppers by June.  In fact, they are still giving peppers now, the production has slowed down a bit and the peppers are nearly hot peppers rather than the mild early season fruits.  They really impress guests when sauteed as talked about earlier and they are so stupidly easy to do AND you only need salt and olive oil.  Awesome for a last minute soiree.

By the way, the plant gets fairly tall, about 2-3 three feet tall. All the more pepper to love.  I've had zero bug issues and am so satisfied with these plants I'm going to do some seed saving to enjoy them again next year without spending the cash on starts.  Yippee.