TheNaturePlanet

A netizen casually threw melon seeds into an old flower pot on their balcony after eating melon in the summer. They didn’t think much of it, but a few months later, they were surprised to find that the pot was filled with vines and a bunch of melons hanging from it! They couldn’t eat them all, so they had to give some to the neighbors, saying, "I wish I had planted more back then; now I can't finish them all!"

At first, the netizen didn’t pay much attention. They said that eating melon in the summer is refreshing, but spitting out the seeds was a hassle. Since there was an empty flower pot on the balcony with some leftover soil from previous plants, they casually threw the seeds in without even turning the soil over. When they watered the plants, they just added a little water and then forgot about it.

About ten days later, they noticed several tender green shoots emerging from the pot, with round leaves looking lively and healthy. After thinking for a while, they realized it was probably the melon seeds they had thrown in. At that point, they didn’t have high expectations, thinking, “Maybe it’ll just grow some leaves, but will it actually bear fruit?” So, they casually kept watering it when they remembered, and left it to nature when they didn’t.

To their surprise, the little plants grew like crazy! Within a month, the vines started climbing out of the pot, and tiny tendrils appeared. The netizen, worried that the vines might spread too much, stuck a bamboo stick in the pot, but the vines wound up the stick and quickly covered half the balcony. Even more surprisingly, the vines soon bloomed small yellow flowers with a faint fragrance. At this point, the netizen started paying more attention, visiting the balcony daily and giving the plant some diluted rice water, thinking, “Even if it doesn’t bear fruit, at least the flowers are nice.”

After about another month, the netizen noticed that, after the flowers fell, tiny melons started to form! At first, they were only as big as a fingernail, green in color. Worried that they might not survive, the netizen went online to check, learning that melons need a trellis to hang from once they start forming, or the vines might break under the weight. They quickly tied the vines to some strings and occasionally sprayed the leaves with water.

Unexpectedly, the melons grew rapidly. Within a few days, they reached the size of a fist and turned from green to a light yellow. When the skin turned fully yellow and they emitted a sweet fragrance, the netizen picked one and tasted it—surprisingly, it was sweeter than store-bought melons! The flesh was soft, juicy, and delicious, rivaling the varieties sold in supermarkets.

Now, the balcony flower pot is filled with over a dozen ripe melons, and a few smaller ones are still growing. The netizen said, "Every day after work, I pick one to eat—it's fresh and sweet. I can't finish them all, so I bag them up and give them to my neighbors. Everyone thinks it's amazing. Who would have thought that the seeds I casually tossed would end up producing so much fruit!"

This story got me thinking, too. Next time I eat melon, I won’t just throw the seeds away. Maybe I’ll be able to achieve "melon freedom" on my balcony too!