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.
“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.
“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.
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.
“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.
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.
