here's a tiny watermelon that tasted just like the real thing

Hello Eaters!
After a seemingly endless supply of cucumbers and other squash family plants, we are finally starting to see some sickness in the vines. This has been an amazing year for squash plants. Usually these have 3 bad pests: the squash bug, the squash vine-borer, and the cucumber beetle who together attack the plant on every front (inside, outside, and giving it diseases). For some reason, perhaps a cold winter or the weird cool weather, these pests have been in very low numbers this year. Luckily we planted much more of this family than I usually do, partly because we had so many interesting varieties donated to us from SeedSavers and Seeds of Change. The melons are also starting to get sick, so it's possible that we won't have melons much longer this season either. However, our summer squash and winter squash are still lush and jungly.

More bug news: We have been attempting to create a balanced eco-system on our little farm. Some strategies are:
1.Plant diverse flowering herbs, perennials, and annual bug favorites (like cosmos and buckwheat) to provide a continuous supply of food to pollinators and predatory insects.
2.Have some good habitat, like compost piles and rock paths where predatory bugs like to live.
3.Avoid spraying pesticides.
4.Create good habitat for other bug eating animals, like birds.
The idea is that if we have a diverse bug eating population, they will be on hand to control any pest problems. As you know, the edamame has aphids, but I have also been noticing a population boom of ladybugs on the soybean plants. Ladybugs, and especially their young children, are voracious aphid eaters. We have seen this working already with the potato bugs, and now the aphids. We still have the pests, but hopefully their numbers will stay at a manageable level. I'd like to say that this is also the case with our squash, but every farmer I have talked to this year has had the same luck with squash – so it doesn't seem to be anything that we are doing. (I keep hoping that something like this will work for the mice, but I'm not seeing any evidence of that yet. )
Cabbage – after a brief respite from cabbage, you will start getting our fall cabbages, which are larger.
Winter Squash: Last week you received butternut squash, one of my favorites. This week it will probably be Sweet Dumpling or Royal Acorn. We tried these two varieties this week and found them to be milder, and requiring a little bit of spicing up – either with butter and sugar, or with a savory recipe.
We also have a lot of Pumpkins! Everyone will get one in their last box (sometime in October) for jack-o-lanterns, but let us know if you want more for halloween or for cooking. I also think other winter squashes make excellent “pumpkin” pie.