Watermelons in Farmstead World — crop in the game, and what it is on a real farm.
The watermelon is a trailing vine in the cucurbit family, a relative of the pumpkin and the cantaloupe, that sets the largest fruit of any vegetable on the farm.
It is mostly water and ripens in the hottest weeks of summer, and like every melon it leans on bees to carry pollen between its separate male and female flowers.
The watermelon, Citrullus lanatus, was domesticated in north-eastern Africa, and seeds and paintings in ancient Egyptian tombs show it was grown there some four thousand years ago. It travelled around the Mediterranean and into Asia and later reached the Americas with European settlers.
Watermelons are warm-season vines that need a long, hot summer, well-drained soil and steady water while the fruit sizes up. Male and female flowers sit separately on the vine, so bees are needed for fruit, and growers bring hives into the field at bloom. Seedless varieties need nearby pollinizer plants to set fruit.
Watermelons are sold fresh, whole or cut, by the crate to retailers and food service. The flesh is eaten or juiced, the seeds are roasted in some cuisines, and the rind is pickled. The fruit is mostly water, which makes it heavy to haul and best sold close to where it is grown.