Saturday, August 3^rd is the official day of celebration for summer’s most sumptuous fruit (or is it a vegetable?), the watermelon.  Putting smiles on picnickers around the country, the first recorded watermelon harvest was actually 5000 long years ago in Egypt. Since then the watermelon has become America’s favorite type of melon as we creatively slice it, salt it, grill it, mix it and even blend it!

92% water, the watermelon can grow to enormous sizes.  According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest watermelon ever grown weighed in at a whopping 268.8 lbs.  That’s the same size of the average lineman on a football team or a full-grown giant panda!

Interestingly, the watermelon is both a fruit and a vegetable.  Because it is ripened by the ovary of a seed plant, botanically, it is a fruit.  However, this melon is also a member of a family of gourds and is planted, grown and harvested like most crop vegetables.

So get to your local fruit and vegetable stand today and begin celebrating by making a great salsa, a watermelon and mint cooler, or pair it with some shrimp, prosciutto and other melons!