jcsnell Loc: SW Ohio

As a retired printer, I must say the printing Press. Without printed material, we would have no instruction manuals for anything listed!!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I invented the concept of the seedless watermelon when I was about 7. I'm sure I wasn't the first to invent the concept, but it was an original thought to me. Unfortunately I did not have the knowledge to actually follow through and produce seedless watermelons.

I noted that watermelons and cucumbers had the same general shape but different sizes. Cucumbers have seeds but they're soft and you just eat them. So I took a cucumber seed and a watermelon seed and cut them in half and taped them together and planted them. The prepared seeds did not sprout for some reason. Probably just as well. With my luck I would have wound up with cucumbers with hard black seeds.

40 years later I had a farm. I planted watermelons and got watermelons. I planted cucumbers and got cucumbers. In New England cucumbers are fairly popular but watermelons (at least the big ones) take too long to grow, and the market for watermelons basically drops to zero after Labor Day. So we only grew the little watermelons, sort of an 8 inch diameter sphere. HOWEVER, if you grow large watermelons and they ripen too late for summer, they make EXCELLENT jack-o-lanterns. Particularly if you leave a layer of the red flesh inside when you hollow them out.

Seedless watermelons are not seedless. They follow my original concept. They have small soft seeds that you just eat. Seedless watermelons are pretty much sterile, i.e. they don't produce viable seeds, although since it's a natural hybrid process, bees will occasionally leave the wrong pollen behind and you will get a hard black seed in your seedless watermelon. There might be only 1 or 2 of them in a dozen melons, not enough to cancel the appellation 'seedless'. I don't really know the details of the production of seedless watermelon seeds but the general procedure is to use 2 different watermelon varieties that will produce the normal hard black seed when crossed, but the resulting fruit from the next generation will be almost sterile as described above.

But to actually answer your question, you plant a seedless watermelon the same way you plant a normal (old-style) watermelon. No difference. I used to grow them in the greenhouse, then transplant them into the field, but direct seeding is possible.

gpc

It turns out that Google Maps works without an internet connection. You can download maps of selected areas to your device before you travel and then use it when you're offline.

Pandora Plus (and Premier) also have an offline mode that allows downloading and playing music without internet, saving using up your cell phone data quota.

Just Shoot Me Loc: Ithaca, NY

Can't say much about the idea...but I like the way you're thinking!

pmorin Loc: Huntington Beach, Palm Springs

On that note……….. i would say sex, because if not for that we probably wouldn’t even talk to our opposites.

SteveR Loc: Michigan

You need help!! You're bad? I'm worse.

bikinkawboy Loc: north central Missouri

Ha! Now you tell me.

I’ve changed my mind. Agriculture is probably the greatest invention-concept of all time. When humans no longer had to forage in the wild for roots and tubers or follow large herds of animals hoping to find a dead one to eat, they could actually stay in one place in a house rather than a cave. And with Burtzy’s door, they could close it at night to keep wild animals from coming in and carrying off their kids. When was the last time you saw a cave with its own door?

When they were able to produce more food than they needed for themselves, they could barter that food for important necessities such as gold rings, stone clubs and prostitutes. Then the latter folks realized they didn’t have to grow their own food when they could instead specialize in things such as metal working, club making and walking streets. Those making clubs were able to form their own advocacy group, NCA, national club association.

People that got tired of making clubs or walking streets were then able to invent stuff like music, literature, painting art, the wheel, printing presses and lying.

In turn, some of those people narrowed their specialized fields and invented rap music, metal workers invented bling and grills and they sometimes combined their skills. Guys used to painting graffiti on cave walls found they could also paint girly pictures on paper, writers made up fictional stories about those women, those with printing presses could mass produce their work and with the invention of the wheel, they were able to invent the bicycle to deliver all their questionable literature to their customers. And those guys that invented lying were then able to teach other guys how to lie when their wife asked them what they were reading and they said “National Geographic“.

I believe I’ve made a good case for my choice.

BBurns Loc: South Bay, California

You are quite correct. However you took my post literally.
When I ask that question to the produce geek in my local store, I get that 'Deer in the Headlights' look.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

The wheel, the nail, and the internet.
--Bob

edrobinsonjr Loc: Boise, Idaho

JustJill Loc: Iowa

Corrective lenses. I would not be able to read this screen very well if I did not have them. With lenses I can also include microscopes, telescopes and binoculars and of course camera lenses.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

THe Pacemaker.

RolandDieter

The wheel, the alphabet and the mathematical notation for "0"

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Sure beats hieroglyphics.

philo Loc: philo, ca

wheels on my camera bag!!!!!!!!!!!!!