photo by Marcus Frazier

Watermelons were the last thing Clifton and Alma Marvel expected to see growing in their backyard but now they welcome their new plants. Clifton even mows around the vines so that he does not damage them.

Melon a tasty surprise

By Vershal Hogan (Contact) | The Natchez Democrat

Published Monday, August 25, 2008

NATCHEZ — The Rev. Clifton Marvel first noticed it when he was mowing the yard.

A tiny vine was growing up out of the ground near a wall in his backyard. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t the perennial pest vine of the area, kudzu, but was instead a watermelon.

Marvel said he didn’t think anything would come of the vine at the time, but that was months ago, and now it has grown and taken up a significant portion of his yard.

So far, that original tiny vine has branched off four times and has produced two full-size melons and a couple of smaller ones.

“It’s a miracle,” Marvel said. “There’s no doubt about it.”

To keep from damaging the miracle vine as it stretches its tendrils across the yard, Marvel just mows the grass around it.

Marvel has a theory about where the vine came from. His wife, Alma, likes to eat watermelon, and when she is done, she takes the rinds to the other side of the yard to feed the birds.

“After the birds eat them, the seeds just get scattered,” he said.

But even with that natural explanation of how the seed got to where it landed, Marvel said he is still amazed that it grew at all.

“I grew up in the country, and daddy would put three to four seeds to the hill,” he said. “For that to just come up and put off four vines, that’s miraculous.”

Alma Marvel said she hasn’t done anything to encourage the vine to grow.

“Other than just going out and petting the melons, we haven’t done much,” she said.

Clifton Marvel said he ate so much watermelon when he was growing up that he doesn’t care for it much.

But when the melons, which he said have a market value of approximately $8, are ripe in a couple of weeks, he plans to partake.

“We’ll invite our neighbors over, take a few pictures and say grace,” he said.

Even then, he won’t be cutting the vine, though.

“I am going to leave it until there are no more signs melons will grow,” he said. “When you get a gift like this, you let it give until it’s done.