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‘What am I looking at here?’: Woman shows off the watermelon she grew—it turns out to be a large pumpkin

‘I can’t tell you how said I was.’

Photo of Sarah Kester

Sarah Kester

woman with 'watermelon' with caption 'THIS WATERMELON IS GOING TO EMBARRASS ME OVER TWO MINUTES' (l) woman with 'watermelon' with caption 'I just want you to share this moment with me' (c) woman with 'watermelon' (r)

What’s the opposite of a green thumb? A woman went through a rollercoaster of emotions after showing off the watermelon that she grew. But once she cut it open, she realized it wasn’t a watermelon; it was a large pumpkin that she had forgotten she planted.

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“This watermelon is going to embarrass me over two minutes,” TikToker Katie Zornes (@tri_ing_to_live) wrote in her video. By Wednesday, it had amassed over 3 million views.  

@tri_ing_to_live I was so excited to share my watermelon with you. There’s NOTHING like homegrown watermelon from the garden. And it’s safe to say, there will never be a “watermelon” like this again. At least in this house. 😂 . . . #embarrassing #watermelon #oops #fromthegarden #squash #storytime ♬ original sound – Katie Zornes

Zornes was excited as she held a knife over the “watermelon,” and predicted what the inside would look like.

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“Could be bad, could be good. I feel like it’s going to be good,” she said, before slicing it in half. 

Instead, she was left confused, staring at what looked like the inside of a large squash in disbelief. 

“What am I looking at here?” she said. 

The discovery left Zornes questioning if she had “defied science” by cross-pollinating a watermelon with a squash. 

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Cross-pollination is when pollen is transferred to another plant. According to Gardening Know How, the genetic material of both plants combine to form a new variety, such as hybrid tomatoes

However, certain plants won’t cross-pollinate. In this case, it’s impossible for watermelon to cross-pollinate with squash since watermelon will only cross-pollinate with species within the genus Citrullus, according to North Carolina State University.

After doing a taste test, Zornes realized that she hadn’t planted a watermelon at all—or a summer squash. It was a pumpkin.

“Guys, this is a pumpkin, … I can’t tell you how sad I was,” she said about accidentally cutting the pumpkin in half. 

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“Did I remember planting Connecticut field pumpkins?” she asked herself after showing her garden full of pumpkins. “Not until I figured out that was a pumpkin.”

In the comments, people got a kick out of her stunned reaction to the surprise crop. 

“Your face froze for so long I thought I paused the video,” one user wrote.

“’What am I looking at here’ absolutely sent me,” another added.

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Like Zornes, some also mistook the pumpkin for a watermelon. “Okay but the outside minus the stem looked like a watermelon to me too!” this person wrote. 

Others were sad that the pumpkin got wasted. “Poor pumpkin!” a user shared with a crying emoji. “It looked like it was gonna be a good one.”

The Daily Dot reached out to Zornes via TikTok comment. 

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