Santo Domingo Brown Seeded watermelon

[Radishrain]

Oh, I picked it I think on Tuesday (3 Sep 2019). I weighed it today, and it registered 14lbs. It's too big to fit in our refrigerator how we have it set up. However, Corner Round, which appeared almost as large, did fit. Here's a picture I took, just now:


Those tomatoes in the background are Tidy Rose F1 tomatoes from the mulched plant that I pulled up. There's a Neapolitan pepper in with them.

[Radishrain]

We ate the 14lb Santo Domingo Brown Seeded watermelon on 23 Sep 2019. Here are my observations:

It wasn't hollow! Our largest watermelons have sometimes been hollow to somewhat hollow. Anyway, although it wasn't hollow, it didn't have the densest flesh in the world (Santo Domingo Winter has had dense flesh for me, however), and there were air pockets where the seeds were. So, it was very easy to eat the whole thing. Between me and another taster, we finished it in one evening (although it was quite enough: I like watermelon a lot; it's my favorite fruit).

The seeds look similar to those of Ancient and Bozeman. They're brown and/or reddish brown (they look similar to slightly reddish seeds, like Navajo Red-seeded). The other taster considered them brown; so, we'll go with that. Anyway, they're a lighter shade than the seeds in the picture on Native Seeds, and the rind was more patterned (with a netted kind of pattern kind of like Charleston Gray under the dark green; Native Seeds has one that looks like that, except with more prominent stripes, in the second picture). The flesh was a lighter color than the flesh in the picture (and it was unarguably pink; the flesh in the picture is not what I consider to be 'unarguably pink', although I still think it's pink).

The taste was amazing! Very sweet and good. Nothwithstanding I thought it was very, very sweet, another tasted, who quite seemed to like it (but who isn't into super sweet stuff), said it wasn't too sweet. It's one of my top three favorite watermelons for taste. Here are my top five favorites, in approximate order:
1. A certain Ledmon watermelon that I had in 2016 (not the largest one).
2. A Tom Watson watermelon that I had in 2016 (which was tiny).
3. Santo Domingo Brown Seeded (which was larger than either of those). This may or may not tie with second place.
4. Santo Domingo Winter (if refrigerated).
5. Tom Watson x King Winter F1

The seeds actually tasted a lot like the flesh, and were pleasant to eat.

The rind was thick. Much of the rind was actually sweet, tasty and very good to eat! The whole thing wasn't sweet, but it was really a good rind. The further I got into it the saltier it seemed to taste. The very skin (I don't mean the rind) was tougher, like winter watermelon skin (so, I believe it is a winter watermelon). Somewhat deeper into the rind I could taste that it was probably a good thing that we decided to eat it when we did (but there were no other indications); so, although I'm sure it's a winter watermelon, I'm not sure that this particular fruit would have lasted four months (it might keep better after more acclimatization and/or when grown in other conditions): That's kind of how I felt about the Kirkman melon, too, which is a winter muskmelon.

The stem end did not have a lot of seeds. The rest of the watermelon was loaded with seeds (for which I am quite happy). I saved seeds from the stem end separately, as an experiment. I want to see if they have different results than the rest of the seeds. I have a hypothesis that harvesting stem-end seeds over generations and growing from them might lend to earlier, rounder fruits over time, and that harvesting from the blossom end might lend to more prolific, longer/larger fruits over time. But, I don't know. It's a guess.