When I first mentioned to a neighbour years ago that we were enjoying home grown watermelon, she was incredulous.

“Watermelon!? In Canterbury?!”

It’s true, melons are a hit-and-miss crop here. Summers are just too cold for these heat-loving plants. My first attempts were mediocre at best—we were lucky to get anything before frost killed the plants. Year after year, they failed. Since then, I’ve learned to start my seeds early in a heated room, and let the plants get nice and big before putting them out. They never go out into the garden until the end of November, and I try to tuck them into one of the more sheltered beds so they don’t have to deal with cold winds. With a bit of coddling, they do reasonably well.

Reasonably well for Canterbury, New Zealand, that is.

My standards for melons have changed dramatically in the last decade. If I were still gardening in North America, I would be sorely disappointed in my melon crop. The fruits are small and few—no giant rattlesnake watermelons or big fat cantaloupes here! Only the most rapidly maturing varieties give at all, and even on these varieties, most fruits don’t make it to maturity before the growing season ends.

But the few, small melons we do get are incredibly sweet and juicy. Even more so, because we shouldn’t be able to grow them at all here. Each one is a blessing and a marvel.