Saturday, July 4, 2009

A Trip to PD, Watermelon Farm

Water melon plantation in Port Dickson

Watermelons (Scientific name, Citrullus lanatus ) were cultivated by mankind as early as during the Egyptian Pharaoh period. Some watermelon seeds were actually found in some of the tombs in Egypt. China is today’s largest producer of watermelon. Watermelon flesh comes in a variety of colours like red, yellow, pink or orange. The exterior of the fruits are green but there are also yellow ones. More than 90 percent of the fruit is actually consist of water but it is also rich in vitamin C and beta carotene. The rind of the water melon can be eaten as vegetable or pickled. I took this picture quite some time back and I found it recently when I was doing some housekeeping on my computer hard disk. My brother in law took my family to Port Dickson to check out some of the farms and plantations around there. It was sort of a field trip for my kids and I have always believed that bringing them to see the actual thing is better than reading it in the books. My brother in law knows some of the plantation owners and he took us to see their watermelon patch. The watermelon plantation covers a big area, not far away from the Shell Port Dickson Refinery . The plantation is located on a small hill and the workers were busy harvesting the watermelon crops. They gave us two large seedless watermelons which we gladly accepted and placed them at the back of our crew cab four wheel drive. Then we went on to visit other plantations and also chicken farms. After that we took a drive along the coastal road and enjoy the view of the sea at the same time. We have to make a stop by the bridge near Batu Melintang/Kampung Nelayan that separates Negri Sembilan and Melaka when we noticed that the water melons have been smashed in to a few pieces due to the bumpy ride on the road. We took it to the nearby coffee shop, cleaned it and ate all of them. Boy, the watermelons were very juicy and sweet! LMAO!

2 comments:

suituapui said...

Seedless? I would love that. I don't like watermelon as I hate spitting out the seeds. Btw, how do they plant them if there are no seeds?

Pete said...

STP : They actually cross the plant with a genetically modified plant then use the pollen to produce a sterile seed. When they plant this seed the fruit will not have any seed, just white coloured seed......so we eat 'ah kua' watermelon, seedless.....ha ha ha, LOL!