Harvesting Cantaloupe Seeds

Today we harvested cantaloupe seeds. Not really a special project: we were just eating this lovely orange fruit and decided the seeds were worth saving, considering our new garden and all.

It was a fascinating activity. Here's what I found out:

1. Scoop out the seeds from the middle try and get as much of the gooey stuff off as possible.

2. Rinse the seeds off as good as you can, then put them in a bowl of warm water. Watch and wait.

3. The ones that sink to the bottom will produce fruit. The ones that float won't.

4. Try and get as much of the slimy stuff out of the bowl as possible.

5. Lay them out to dry. You can use a towel if you want: we used a screen frame.

6. Let them dry for a couple days.

7. You can start them inside 3-4 weeks before planting outdoors. Or sow directly in sunny location.

8. Make a 12-inch wide hill for every three seedlings. Or you can plant them in rows about a foot to a foot-and-a-half apart.

9. Water daily, watch them grow!

I told Hunter that there is DNA inside each seed, which is like a set of instructions that tells the seed what to do. When the seeds get food from the ground, water, air (oxygen), and sunlight, they make roots and stems and leaves and grow into a plant. The fruit of a plant always holds its seeds, which is not only God's way of making sure the plants reproduce, but also his way of giving us yummy food to eat.

Exciting business for a three-year-old!

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."

Genesis 1:11

Hunter is 3 years, 1 month old