LADY BUG: THIS IS YEAR O FJUICY WATERMELONS, COLORFUL SNAPDRAGONS

This is the year of the watermelon and the snapdragon. Each year The National Garden Bureau selects a vegetable or fruit and a flower and concentrates on their publicity, hoping to promote them for use by the public.

Nothing says "summer" like watermelon. The sweet juicy flesh means vacation, hot weather and gardening. Easy to grow, it offers a healthy snack, or can be used for salad or dessert.

Watermelons have been around a long, long time. In Africa, hieroglyphs on the walls of Egyptian tombs indicate watermelons were cultivated there thousands of years ago. Archaeologists identified watermelon seeds in a prehistoric cave in Hang Zhou, China, which dated from 3000 B.C.

Colonial settlers carried seeds from Europe and African slaves brought seeds from their native countries to introduce watermelons to North America.

Watermelon is the sweetest member of a vast family of 700 species called Cucurbitaceae. Their closest kin in this family are cucumbers, cantaloupes, pumpkins and squash. All have trailing vines, climbing tendrils and hairy leaves.

All watermelons are annuals and have course, hairy, divided leaves and smooth-skinned fruit. All can be classified in six ways - size, shape, flesh color, rind color, sweetness and number of days to mature.

We tend to associate the word watermelon with the word "huge", but breeders have down-sized the melon so now there are three sizes - small 5 to 18 pounds, medium 18 to 24 pounds and large 25 to 45 pounds. The largest on record weighed 255 pounds.

Red is the color most often referred to with watermelons, but some have yellow or orange flesh. It is said these taste as sweet and are as juicy as their red cousin, but our preference is still red watermelons with black seeds.

Watermelon seeds are large, easy to handle and plants are simple to grow from seeds. From sowing seed to planting outside takes about three to four weeks. They need to be fertilized during the growing season, but too much nitrogen can cause too much foliage at the expense of fruit production.

When is a watermelon ripe? This is the $64,000 question. One way to judge maturity is to watch the ground spot. When it changes from white to a creamy or golden yellow color, it is said to be mature.

Snapdragons are native to the Mediterranean, but are grown worldwide for their garden beauty or for cut flowers.

For centuries snapdragons have been grown in Russia and the Balkans as food. The seeds are crushed releasing an oil, similar to olive oil, that can be used in place of butter.

In England snapdragons become common by the reign of Queen Elizabeth and were popular in Victorian gardens, and journied across the sea to North America by the 18th century.

Snaps are perfect to teach children how to gently interact with flowers. Pushing the "dragon's jaws" open and allowing them to shut, is a good way to introduce children to the joys of nature.

By 1950 snapdragons were one of the five top flower crops grown in American greenhouses. In 1958 at a Garden Writers' meeting in Chicago, which I attended, Charles Weddle, one of the breeders of the New rocket series snap, spoke regarding the new Rocket Series.

Bright Butterflies, introduced in 1966 by Goldsmiths of Gilroy, Calif., won the All-America Selections Award. Sakata Seed Company of Tokyo, Japan, introduced the Floral Carpet series in six single colors and they have been extremely popular for the past 20 years.

The original snapdragon species were limited in color to white and purple. Today the flower appears in every color of the spectrum except blue. Some varieties of modern snapdragons are even bicolored, having one predominate color with a contrasting tube or eye color.

Snaps are classified by their flower form or height. The flower form is the one which delights the child in all of us. When the base of the flower is gently squeezed the jaws drop open. The height may be either dwarf, medium or tall. The dwarfs measure only 6 to 15 inches.

Snaps have just a few, easily met cultural requirements. They like sunny locations and a moderately rich, well drained soil. Sometimes however, our July and August days may get too hot. They will adapt to light shade.

Since snapdragons are old fashioned flowers, they may well be started the old fashioned way, from seeds. They need to be started 10 weeks prior to setting outside. Local garden centers have excellent bedding plants, and we lazy gardeners often rely on those which are well on their way to a good start.

Tall varieties are excellent for cut flower. Since they are old fashioned English flowers, gardeners are planting them in their English cottage gardens here.