Moon and Stars Melon

Every Saturday, we get up and go to the McKinney Farmer's Market.  It's great fun and the food is fab.  Well, this week we were walking around and saw this amazingly cool melonthat was dark green with big yellow polka dots and just had to get it.  It's called a Moon and Stars Melon, which is a type of heirloom melon. Apparently, it's called Moon and Stars because of the yellow spots on the skin – large yellow spots (moons) surrounded by small yellow spots (stars).  Related to the Black Diamond watermelon, this melon can get up to forty pounds!

I did a little homework and found out that it was available from seed catalogs as late as the 1920s but disappeared during that time and many people thought it had been lost forever.  However, in 1980, the Seed Savers group was contacted by Merle Van Doren, a farmer in Macon, Missouri – it turns out he had been cultivating this unique watermelon on his farm!  He gave them some of the seeds and now this melon is back from extinction.  Pretty cool!