I think this is the year 2000. Row of canteloupe in the side garden, and closer, row of edamame (still small). Sprinkler tripod. Behind that, the rear garden.

I pull back a bit for a more comprehensive view. Note the sweet corn on the right.

Now I move in closer. Foreground left, cantaloupes. Foreground right, edamame, early growth. Behind them, a small compost pile. To the left of that, my handmade sprinkler tripod, made from about $5.00 US worth of furring strips (1 by 2 lumber) and $3.00 worth of steel and stainless steel fasteners. Bottom of tripod (feet) treated with Cuprinol. Behind the sprinkler, from left to right, 20 foot by 6 foot compost piles (6 by 1.8 meters), which are to the left, and out of view, cherry tomatoes, edamame (mature growth), and another 6 foot by 20 foot cantaloupe bed. Note the yellow flowers. Trellis with twine removed. This is 6 feet high and 24 feet (7.3 meters) long. Further right, sweet corn, mature in the back, 8-inch (20 cm) tall young plants in front . These 4 rows (2 double-rows) are each about 20 feet long.

Different angle.

Same here. Still year 2000? From left to right tomatoes, edamame, canteloupe (6 foot by 20 foot bed). This is a closer view of the the rear garden that you can see in the photo above.

Closer look.

Even closer. There are 4 melons cozying up to each other. Three that have reached about full size, and one behind them, to the left of the middle-melon, that is smaller and still dark green (with light-colored stripes). Do you see it? It looks like a roundish zucchini squash. Yes, melons and squashes are fairly closely related. And zucchini squashes are the same species as many pumpkins and squashes. Zucchini are basicly immature pumpkins.

Check out the "baby" watermelon in the foreground. Eventually this grew into a 15 to 25 pound (7 to 11 kg) round melon. This is in a 6 or 7 foot wide by 20 foot long melon bed. Out of it I got about 20 watermelons, each weighing 15 to 25 pounds. Note that watermelon leaves are sectioned. Cantaloupe leaves look more like squash and pumpkin leaves. Those watermelon plants grew incredibly fast, taking control of territory and soil and greedily sucking up soil nutrients at breakneck speed, for a plant.

Below are a closeup of my cherry tomato plants. You can see a couple of nearly ripe fruits. The fruits that I couldn't eat right away, I froze. You don't need to steam them first. In the winter, I thawed them as needed, and made tomato sauce. They were very very sweet, and the sauce didn't need any sugar.

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