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Post by ferdzy on Apr 14, 2016 19:33:02 GMT -5
tomatohat, I can tell you that I am in zone 5b (so a little warmer than you, I think) and I did not get Orangeglo anywhere NEAR ripe enough to eat. Sweet Siberian is usually decent, and I haven't tried Early Moonbeam so can't comment. Also, Orangeglo isn't picnic size - if it's less than 20 lbs you can apparently expect it to not be worth eating. templeton, I think it's straight up heat that does it. So yes, I would cover them.
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Post by philagardener on Apr 14, 2016 20:28:42 GMT -5
Agreed - the more warmth the better!
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Post by glenn10 on Apr 14, 2016 21:02:05 GMT -5
I'm not sure what triggers the ripening but from experience the melons which set fruit early and see more light always brix out higher than the ones that set fruit later and ripen later in the fall(same melon varieties just planted later or not babied).
I'm in zone 5a (sometimes 4b)I always baby a bunch and use little mini green houses so I can hopefully get them to flower and set fruit by mid June so they see max daylight during the fruit development stage.
I have put the mini green houses back on in late September to ripen a few choice stragglers and they seem to sweeten up ok, similar to something you would get at the supermarket.
Glenn
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Post by steev on Apr 15, 2016 1:36:43 GMT -5
I have heat issues, so melons mostly do fine; cool season stuff tends to be problematic (and seems to be coming more so).
I fear you cool-season folks may find cool-season less relevant.
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Post by tomatohat on Apr 15, 2016 4:05:55 GMT -5
tomatohat , I can tell you that I am in zone 5b (so a little warmer than you, I think) and I did not get Orangeglo anywhere NEAR ripe enough to eat. Sweet Siberian is usually decent, and I haven't tried Early Moonbeam so can't comment. Also, Orangeglo isn't picnic size - if it's less than 20 lbs you can apparently expect it to not be worth eating. Hmmm... maybe I'll just skip Orangeglo then. I was looking for a large yellow or orange fleshed watermelon that would be productive in 5a. Looks like Sweet Siberian is my best bet. Have you (or anyone else in cooler climates) had success with C. melo Inodorous (winter/storage melons)? Any recommendations? |
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Post by ferdzy on Apr 15, 2016 19:26:33 GMT -5
tomatohat, I've grown some winter melons, specifically: Collective Farm Woman, Mary Gold, Golden Honeymoon, and an unnamed asian/middle eastern one. That is, I'm sure it had a name but I didn't know what it was. The first 3 were good, the last one was not. However, after reading more about them, I've come to realize it's not just a matter of knowing how to grow them, but how to store them and when to eat them - apparently many of the asian/middle eastern melons are not good when freshly harvested, and actually NEED to be stored for a while before being eaten, for the starches to convert to sugars. However, CFW, Mary Gold and Golden Honeymoon kept reasonably well although not for a super long time (mind you, we ate them) and were good eating right from harvest.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 16, 2016 18:04:03 GMT -5
Please let us know how it works out--I'm really curious. I was under the impression that cucurbit seeds generally die from rot/fungal diseases if they're in the ground unprotected from cold, wet weather. I currently have two (what i assume are watermelon) seedlings. It is currently trying to snow today and tomorrow and is very cold and wet. I will let you know if the seedlings survive. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 17, 2016 16:21:56 GMT -5
I currently have two (what i assume are watermelon) seedlings. It is currently trying to snow today and tomorrow and is very cold and wet. I will let you know if the seedlings survive. The rain turned into snow last night. They predicted about 6", but it seems for the second time most of it missed us. We got maybe 3-4" of wet snow. The two watermelon seedlings are fine. The snow is mostly melted and it's fairly warm with the sunshine out. Google says 39F Daytime / 27F Nighttime. The beans don't necessarily look happy, but they look like they will survive as well. The maize looking seedlings in the teosinte / sweet corn patch look fine too. There are more seedlings today. Watermelon seedlings that can take a light snow are winners in my book.  Looking good. |
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Post by glenn10 on Apr 18, 2016 17:57:12 GMT -5
tomatohat , I can tell you that I am in zone 5b (so a little warmer than you, I think) and I did not get Orangeglo anywhere NEAR ripe enough to eat. Sweet Siberian is usually decent, and I haven't tried Early Moonbeam so can't comment. Also, Orangeglo isn't picnic size - if it's less than 20 lbs you can apparently expect it to not be worth eating. Hmmm... maybe I'll just skip Orangeglo then. I was looking for a large yellow or orange fleshed watermelon that would be productive in 5a. Looks like Sweet Siberian is my best bet. Have you (or anyone else in cooler climates) had success with C. melo Inodorous (winter/storage melons)? Any recommendations? I have had good luck with regular honey dew (don't know what variety) and "tweety hybrid".The pure tweety was very productive and set lots of fruit per vine. Second season(last year was really cool too) planting of the offspring saw a wide variation some were close to appearance to the parent while others were spherical and looked just like yellow honey dew losing the wrinkled football shape. Last year we picked the last melons by end of September and we ate the last melon mid November. I just left them sitting in the corner of the kitchen never refrigerated. The only really reliable water melon varieties that do well for me are Canada early and yellow doll. Any thing else that I have tried needs to be babied a lot to get anything good. keen101 those seedlings are inordinately tough! keep us posted on the progress of these through the season. Do you remember what the parent varieties were? |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 18, 2016 19:55:39 GMT -5
keen101 those seedlings are inordinately tough! keep us posted on the progress of these through the season. Do you remember what the parent varieties were? The original grex / proto-landrace contained a lot of varieties. When i started i put an emphasis on native american varieties from the southwest and northern varieties. Of the ones i remember specifically adding were yellow doll, hollyhill (hybrid between yellow doll and blacktail mountain), Sweet Dakota Rose, blacktail mountain (did poorly for me as a pure variety), sugar baby, hopi yellow, hopi red, Desert King, Saldana Idaho Watermelon, Navajo Winter, etc. Incidentally it seemed that joseph also used many of the same original varieties when he started his. I was away from home in California for a few years with no access to a garden, so i sent all my watermelon proto-landrace seeds to joseph. Not sure if he folded them into his or not, but the seeds i planted last year were all from seed Joseph was nice enough to send back. Joseph lists some of the original varieties he included in his landrace on his website, which i will try to quote below. But basically 90% of the seeds i have now can be traced to joseph's work. We were swapping seeds every season at the beginning though. The main difference between them now is that last year i got several ripe red fleshed watermelons that i was quite pleased with, while joseph has started to only plant yellow fleshed ones. I've never grown Early Canada myself, but of the ones i have grown, i would recommend Sweet Dakota Rose for a good Red watermelon variety and Yellow Doll for a good yellow. I planted as many varieties of mostly short-season watermelon as I could acquire. The list of varieties included: Ali Baba, Allsweet, AS, Arikara, Asahi Miyako Ibrida, Black Diamond, Black Diamond Yellow Belly Strain, Black Seeded Ice Cream, Blacktail Mountain, Bozeman, Carolina Cross #183, CFMCM 2010, Charleston Gray - Paradise Subvariety, Chelsea, Chris Cross, CIT 128, CIT 182, CIT 183, Citrillus, Congo, Cream of Saskatchewan, Crimson Sweet, Dakota Rose, Densuke, Desert King, Dixielee, Diyarbakir, Early Canada, Early Moonbeam, Giza, Gold Flower, Golden Midget, Green JB, Hokkaido Black, Hopi Yellow, Ice Cream Flavored, India, Janosik, King and Queen, Kitro, Kleckly, Little Light, Mickeylee, Moon and Stars, Navajo Red-seeded, Navajo Sweet - Dayton Nevada strain, Navajo, New Hampshire Midget, Orangeglo, Osh Khirgizia, Quetzali, Red Shine Citron, Royal Golden, San Juan Sangria, Scorik ultra early, Small Red, Small Shining Light, Strawberry, Sugar Baby, Sweet Round, Sweet Siberian, Takii Gem. Tendersweet Orange, Verona, Wills Sugar, Yellow Doll, yellow-fleshed watermelon, Yellow JB, Yellow Jubilee, Yellow & Green Colour Fruit, Медовый Гигант, Огонёк, Подарок Солнца, Сибирские Огни, (Honey Giant, Spark, Gift of the Sun, Siberian fires). |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 18, 2016 20:12:21 GMT -5
Also included were strains of melons sold by the local farm-stands, some of which undoubtedly came from Green River Utah, and Alan Bishop's watermelon grex, and seeds grown by Susan Oliverson in my valley, and by Dianne Speed of Missouri, and from Soren Holt. Keen101's seed got folded into the landrace after the first year.
While the diversity going into the ground was very high, what actually germinated, and survived long enough to produce fruit was only a few plants the first few years.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Apr 18, 2016 20:52:03 GMT -5
Joseph is right, even though those were many of the ones originally added many self eliminated the first season, and many others eventually died out in subsequent years. Only the best survived. And of those left, the tasteless ones are periodically being selected out. I had at least two white fleshed appear last year that had no taste at all. Into the compost they went.
I now have i think 8 watermelon seedlings. Wunderground local weather station says the max temp today was 50F. I think a few of those germinated yesterday or today.
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Post by glenn10 on May 4, 2016 19:11:47 GMT -5
OK here is an update for today.Direct seeded a shit ton of mixed seed (about 2 lbs in a 16 foot row)from 2014 and 2015 on April 24th. Covered the row with clear poly and they are coming up today. Most nights were typically in the freezing digits coldest being minus 10 Celsius(14F) and lots of minus 6C(21F). It has been warming up a bit with the past few nights only at minus 1C(30F) to just above freezing and last night a balmy 4 degrees C(39F).Todays daytime high was a wopping 7C(45F). So the plastic for me right now is the ticket for getting seeds germinating quickly in my very cool climate. I will be mulching with hay this year to conserve moisture. Last years survival of the fittest experiment when in the crapper as it was extremely dry and i lost almost the entire row with the only few survivors getting some lawn mower clipping mulch mid season. So this survival of the fittest experiment will be same as last year plus mulch I will not be culling any plants just letting the strongest overtake the weak........good idea or bad idea?   |
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Post by mskrieger on May 10, 2016 9:22:20 GMT -5
Congratulations on the good germ rate, glenn10. But why do you need to plant melons so early? Is there not enough heat during a typical summer to ripen them if you wait? |
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Post by philip on May 10, 2016 14:36:39 GMT -5
Hello everybody,
After a miserable spring so far i have finally got around to sowing my melon seeds a week ago.
This is very late compared to last year so i expect the plants to get less big and have fewer fruit.
Also i am way behind with my melon bed this year. I had to start a new garden from scratch.
I am looking forward to grow my Luneville x Minnesota Midget cross this year.
I will post again later in the year. Have a happy gardening year with some sweet juicy melons.
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Looking good.
