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Post by philip on Jun 4, 2015 16:08:03 GMT -5
I am trying to breed melons for outdoor growing in central brittany, france. Some people, when they hear france, may think it's easy to grow melons in france. It is in other parts of the country but not where i live. Brittany due to being a peninsula has many microclimates and the area north of carhaix-plouguer has cool summer temperatures. August ist our hottest month with an average temperature of 17.4 degree celsius (63.3 fahrenheit). Lots of rain and many cloud-covered days like in Ireland and parts of the UK. I started last year with 4 melon and 3 watermelon varieties that i grew in my polytunnel because i didn't have a lot of seed and i wanted them to cross. I also planted 2 Blenheim Orange melons outside to test things out.
They grew, flowered and made fruit. But the melons tasted like cucumber with a hint of melon flavour. No sweetness or juiciness. Nearly all of the tunnel-grown ones were very good and i managed to harvest watermelons and more importantly their seed. All was left to cross freely.
This year i am growing most melons outside on black plastic. 8 melon varieties and 6 watermelon ones.
Varieties are: Blenheim orange, ananas from Russia, a melon from Kazakhstan, petit gris de rennes, minnesota midget, irina's suesse, lunéville and the farthest north melon mix (thanks Søren)
Watermelons: Olga's beauty, blacktail mountain, cream of katchvestan, siberian sweet, early moonbeam and early canada.
I want to establish a landrace that manages to produce tasty melons outdoors even in bad years.
Long-term goal is growing them without black plastic and possibly even direct seeding.
So i am excited to see how they will fare this year. This year farthest north mix is the first to start flowering.
As far as the watermelons are concerned i am probably pushing things too far but we'll see.
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Post by steev on Jun 4, 2015 19:44:35 GMT -5
Nothing ventured, nothing gained; my own current "trial-by-drought", in NorCal, is frustrating, but I think I'm learning valuable lessons.
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Post by castanea on Jun 4, 2015 23:28:58 GMT -5
Good luck Philip! It looks like you have good watermelon stock for cool areas.
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Post by nicollas on Jun 5, 2015 4:28:16 GMT -5
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Post by ferdzy on Jun 5, 2015 6:18:12 GMT -5
Psst! I'm pretty sure that's "Cream of Saskatchewan". Another watermelon I'd recommend is Small Shining Light. Oh, and Golden Midget. Golden Midget doesn't get great reviews for flavour, but in some cool years I've thought them the best tasting of my watermelons. Definitely one to try in a cool area. They also ripen a month before anything else I grow, and the fact that they turn yellow when ripe is very helpful.
Actually, I have a shitload of watermelon seed saved from 2 years of more-or-less indiscriminate crossing between a dozen cold-hardy varieties. Can't guarantee what you will get from it, but it might be useful to you. Our summers tend to be warm enough, but short, although last year was miserably cool and rainy, with temperatures rairly getting above 20°C.
We actually got a very good number of ripe melons; the bad news was all of them ripened between mid september and mid october - not prime melon eating season. We froze a lot of watermelon and have been drinking melon smoothies all winter.
We grow without plastic, although we do cover them when it's below 20°. Yeah, they spent a lot of last summer covered.
We've given up on direct seeding cucurbits. They get dug up and eaten by crows, raccoons, squirrels, skunks maybe, and probably other things too; you get the picture. Oh, and cut worms are a major pest. We were putting out our seedlings with paper collars, but the crows have figured out that paper collars = tasty treat and have had to stop.
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Post by philip on Jun 5, 2015 12:17:01 GMT -5
Ferdzy: the place i bought the seeds from sells them as Creame with an e of Katchvestan but it wouldn't be the first time people get varieties names wrong so it may well be cream of Saskatchewan. I never heard of Small Shining Light but Golden Midget is one i definitely wanted but couldn't manage to order. If you have seeds to spare i would be happy to take them.
I should have something interesting to swap. If they're crossed that's even better.
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Post by imgrimmer on Jun 5, 2015 13:06:21 GMT -5
Hi Philip, i didn`t know Brittany is that cool in summer. You are right when I think of France I see summer... I do too try to find melons for northern climates. Last year I had good results with water melons, it was the first time for me, but unfortunately mildew liked 2014 too. That was the end of the song... This year is too cold and I am very late with melons. Today the summer started but I`ll wait until next week it seems spring is coming back... I do direct seeding without any black plastic or irrigation, all I can tell there is some potential in both kind of melons to grow in cooler climates. Maybe it is a good idea for me too to start with little help like black plastic like you do and do the hard selection later with the offspring. Let`s hope for some kind of summer worth called summer  But let`s look on the bright side it is ideal for finding cool adapted melons:) |
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Post by philip on Jun 5, 2015 15:36:10 GMT -5
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Post by philip on Jun 5, 2015 15:42:21 GMT -5
I am quite bad with computers. This is the first time i managed to insert a picture into a post. So this is my outdoor melon bed with 6 watermelons each a different variety and further down 12 melons consisting of 8 varieties. I dug a trench down the middle filled with old well-rotted cow manure. The plants are about a foot and a half apart with 4 foot to both sides. I am thinking of placing quite a lot of stones on the black plastic cause i read this improves conditions when they ray out heat at night.
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Post by taihaku on Jun 6, 2015 8:10:33 GMT -5
Very interesting project Philip; I'll be following with interest as I was planning to have a play with watermelons next year (planning to grow out blacktail mountain and early moonbeam as that's what I have seed of) here in Guernsey where I suspect we have a very similar climate. Have been pondering melons too - the only one we've ever had any success with is Ogen. If you would be interested in a collaborator I'd be delighted to pool resources.
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Post by philip on Jun 6, 2015 15:12:02 GMT -5
taihaku: that's great, i am always interested in collaborating with others. I would like to say that i can send you melon seeds of my best ones this year but so far the weather is so bad that i am not sure i will get to harvest anything. The plants don't seem to grow much at the moment. The most promising are the farthest north melon mix for the melons a grex bred by Tim Peters and then further selected by Søren Holt and Early Canada for the watermelons from what i can see up to now.
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Post by jondear on Jun 6, 2015 17:42:16 GMT -5
I set out thirteen watermelon plants, the strongest looking of the 5 varieties I tried this year. The weather has pruned it down to 6 plants so far. Interestingly enough I believe the moon and stars yellow flesh is one of the stronger plants at the moment. I say "I believe" because I didn't mark any variety with a name, but a few have the yellow dots on the foliage, which I think is typically for the variety.
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Post by glenn10 on Jun 6, 2015 23:00:22 GMT -5
I too live in a similar climate and embarking on a similar journey. This has been a very cool year and we are below seasonal temps so far calling for frost tonight even and we are into June. Like ferdzy, I have issues with wildlife. I prepped an acre last year and put out over 100 hybrids on Monday into my breeding patch not thinking about any kind of protection or wildlife deterrents of any sort(even thought I do deal with it every year). I checked on them on Thursday and found crows and foxes felt the need to be jerks and pulled out more than half of my plants ....boy I was mad at myself! So out came my example dead crow which got staked out in the middle of the patch....gets rid of the crows but foxes are still coming around.
Anyways that was my hardship story for this year, hopefully I can get some to survive the wild life this year maybe all us cool climate melon growers can do a seed swap at the end of the season!
I am trying a direct seed bed this year as well with a clear ploy cover to warm the soil, seeds were planted Saturday May 23rd (soil was tilled and covered with poly May 16th to warm for one week) and were out of the ground by Thursday May28th. I planted them in 2 rows with very close high density seed sowing not thinking they would germinate so well but holy moly did they ever! This patch is going to be the survival of the fittest/see what happens patch with no culling of any plants. I will take a pic tomorrow and post the progression good or bad throughout the season.
Glenn
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Post by imgrimmer on Jun 7, 2015 1:43:45 GMT -5
Hi Glen,
where do you live?
I am about to sow tomorrow. Weather forecast is getting better, it seems a kind of summer is coming...
I will sow direct into the ground and protect it with a vlies to raise temperatures.
Seed swap is a good idea!
Mikkel
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Post by Al on Jun 7, 2015 2:56:32 GMT -5
I well remember a summer trip to Cavaillon in Provence & the fine melons they grow around there, there was a huge melon sculpture in a traffic round-about on the way into town. Another summer holiday in Brittany was a cool & wet affair with one afternoon of sunny beach weather during a two week stay!
It is my first year growing melon in Scotland, the first week of June has seen horrible gales so I think the melon will be staying in the greenhouses. I am trying Emir, an F1 type said to be suited to U.K. conditions. If they are a success I will be very interested to hear of other varieties which do well in cool northern climes, perhaps in cold frames or under temporary low hoop tunnels.
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Next year i guess...
