|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 18, 2015 19:42:24 GMT -5
oldmobie: Watermelons can get over-ripe, and then they get mushy. That rarely happens in my garden because I am lucky if I'm able to harvest somewhat mature melons by the time frost arrives. I often eat watermelons in December that were picked in September. I've inadvertently left watermelons on the vine long enough that they started fermenting. Mmmmm. That's come mighty fine muskmelons. Makes me happy. I haven't had that happen with watermelons, they turn to slime...
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Aug 26, 2015 18:14:39 GMT -5
Again I googled "How to tell if a watermelon is ripe". Picked up a few new tells. Here's my list as of now: 1) "Field spot" turns yellow..................................................................................check 2) Nearest tendril dries up....................................................................................check 3) Markings become indistinct...............................................................................check 4) fruit should have some "give", neither rock hard nor spongy........................check 5) muffled cracking sound when squeezed..........................................................I still couldn't detect this. I got impatient, harvested the most apparently mature fruit anyway. Much better than last time. I'm gonna call it mostly ripe. It's sweet and juicy, not completely colored, though. I'm starting to think that instead of a perfectly ripe "moment", there may be a "window of opportunity" in which the fruit matures from kinda ripe, through perfectly ripe, to slightly over-ripe. I picked this one too early in that window. Can anyone tell me how long the window lasts? Put another way, should I have waited 3-4 more days for perfectly ripe? A week? How close am I? At any rate, it tastes ok, and we're gonna eat it.  |
|
|
|
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 26, 2015 18:35:13 GMT -5
Oldmobie: Looking better! Mmmm.
In my garden, in the cool weather of fall, the harvest window on watermelon is perhaps 3 weeks long...
|
|
|
|
Post by flowerweaver on Aug 26, 2015 20:19:32 GMT -5
Down in Texas we thump'em. There's even a festival called the Luling Watermelon Thump. Why don't you go to your grocery store and thump a few, and listen. Then come home and try to find that same sound in yours.
|
|
|
|
Post by steev on Aug 26, 2015 22:49:41 GMT -5
So the ones in the store are of perfect ripeness, that I should take them as my standard? I'm afraid I just have to try every WM I get by every test I can, until I've trained myself to judge, which is complicated by variety, shape, and size; it's one of those "lifetime learning" situations; easy way out: grow one variety; never grow another.
My plan is to grow enough of any variety to pick one, give it all the tests, cut it and eat it; wait a week and repeat until it's where I want it; make a note of how it responded to the tests when it pleased me, cause you can't do the tests after you've cut.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Aug 26, 2015 23:06:42 GMT -5
Down in Texas we thump'em. There's even a festival called the Luling Watermelon Thump. Why don't you go to your grocery store and thump a few, and listen. Then come home and try to find that same sound in yours. I forgot to mention that test, as I don't have an ear for it yet. I do thump 'em, though, so if I ever pick a fully ripe one, I should start to develope the ability. |
|
|
|
Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Aug 26, 2015 23:17:56 GMT -5
Looking better!
4 more days or a week probably would have been perfect.
Thump test usually works good on commercial watermelon. There is even a change in the sound when overripe. I suggest go to your local Wal-Mart and practice.
|
|
|
|
Post by jondear on Aug 27, 2015 16:11:19 GMT -5
I'd be way happy with that melon. Mine were a complete failure this year. I have one set on about the size of a baseball. lol... I LOVE the knife though. It reminds me of my favorite fillet knife but yours is serrated.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Aug 27, 2015 22:24:28 GMT -5
 I pulled a few ears from my detassled non-sweet corns that were hopefully pollinated by sweet corns. Pollination wasn't great in some of them, but I have hopes for the top one. I don't think I planted anything that looked like that. Maybe it's just not fully colored yet, but I'm hoping it's a cross. When it dries down, I'll look for wrinkled seeds. I'm trying to be more patient and let the rest dry on the plants. |
|
|
|
Post by reed on Aug 28, 2015 4:10:30 GMT -5
If your detasseling was timely then they are crossed. From what I'v learned here on the forum and confirmed with my own experiments this year you won't see any wrinkled seeds until you grow out the crosses next year. I crossed Painted Mountain, Cascade Cream Cap, Pancake White Manna and Oaxacan Green Dent. Some of the PM, and PWM came out looking maybe a little more flinty, the OGD came out different colors, mostly shades of green with some red, purple and blue tones. For next year I think you'll want seeds from as many ears as you can so the poorly filled ears are just fine. That's how I'm trying to compensate for low number of plants, by making sure they are from maximum possible number of mothers and fathers. Even things I grew mostly "pure within the variety" like AD I still detasseled the mothers I saved from to make sure each seed has two parents.
My F1 planting of the early flour x sweet is showing some tassels. If weather cooperates I might actually get some seeds. If it looks like frost will take them I plan to dig up a few of the best ones and take them in the green house.
What non-sweets did you use?
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Aug 28, 2015 7:12:24 GMT -5
What non-sweets did you use? Whenever a special example of something pops up, I try to save it by itself. I had seed leftover from a 2013 planting of ornamentals. Earthtones Rainbow Dent, my tiny blue popcorn and an indian corn I don't remember the name of went into that planting. I saved most of the seeds as "general population". I also saved seed from the largest ear of indian corn. Least bug damaged examples from each variety. The one blue popcorn that produced three ears. (Now I know enviromental factors play a big role in number of ears, if the genetics are there for more ears. If I get one ear per plant, it's usually from crowding. Didn't know that yet.) The one plant of indian corn with purple stalk, leaves, husks and purple-red kernels. I may have omitted the blue popcorn from this year's patch, since it's small. The rest of the special cases are in there. I also put in some kernels from my one ear of well pollinated indian corn from last year. It was a big, nice plant. It grew out of a collection of every kind of red kernel I could scrounge up. (I was trying to use the pollen to make a red popcorn.) It only had red kernels. I figured "Stable for all red? Could be kinda cool". It's in there. I also got a few seeds in trade, described as huge white flour corn, gets over 12 feet tall. It's in there. I think that's all. I just mixed the non-sweets together before planting. The sweets were also mixed. I think my diversity is already too high to predict pollination timing. I hoped that planting all mixed like that would increase the odds of available pollen nearby at whatever time silks came on. |
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Sept 7, 2015 13:27:36 GMT -5
I should've started a new thread for this remedial class on watermelons that I'm getting. Oh well, everything else is here, so I'll post here to keep it together.
I was given a store bought watermelon. Flesh was very red, very sweet, and so juicy is squirted out as the knife went in. The shell/ rind was thinner than what I've harvested, with the red flesh coming very near the outside.
On the other hand, it has a grainy texture. I like the texture of mine better.
So: seed saving... It tastes good, and will add diversity. Reason enough to save a few seeds. But are the other factors genetic, or a side effect of it being more ripe than what I've grown? Will it add sweet, bright red flesh and thin skin/ rind into the population, or will those be lost until I learn to let 'em ripen good? Will it contaminate my population with mushy grainy flesh, or is that just a sign it should've been picked a few days earlier?
The answers (or the lack of) will mean the difference between throwing 10-15 seeds into the mix or saving all of them, seperate from what I've grown and being sure to grow a few hills.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Sept 9, 2015 17:36:47 GMT -5
 Finally some production from moschata! The butternut is from seeds I saved the ONE other time I got ripe fruit. It's pretty sad, but I may keep a few seeds in the mix and hope that crossing gives it some size and vigor. The larger ones I don't recognize, I suppose they came from the moschata seeds Joseph Lofthouse sent me. They'll need more selection before they adapt to here, but should put me WAY ahead on diversity. They'll probably become the backbone of my mix. |
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Oct 13, 2015 17:25:29 GMT -5
Just got home from eight days of vacation to find this.  The Oaxacan corn I had hoped to cross with LISP Ashworth is finally tassling. Missed the timing badly, but now I'll hopefully get seed increase. That'll be great, since that was the last seed. |
|
|
|
Post by oldmobie on Oct 22, 2015 12:07:33 GMT -5
I've just started to process my dry beans. Picked for about ten minutes, just to have some seeds to play with. Considering that the area I was picking was planted with Joseph Lofthouse's (bush) dry bean landrace and Anasazi, Cherokee Trail of Tears and Rattlesnake pole beans from reed, it's not surprising that I got a mix of different looking seeds. With a little help from google, I've identified: - Anasazi
- Either CToT or the black beans from Joseph's Landrace
- A mystery bean
The mystery bean (on the right in the picture) came from a pole bean. It doesn't look like I remember Rattlesnake, nor like the ones on google image. The pods were unmarked and tough when dried. (If I took a handful and squeezed, they split at the seems and released some seeds, but didn't shatter or break.) Any thoughts on what kind they are? I like them for the easy shelling. I'll save some seeds because of that. If they do well when I taste test them today, I'll save a bunch of them.  |
|
