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Post by ferdzy on Aug 31, 2016 6:46:34 GMT -5
@glenn10, nice looking melons!
Dark solid green skin, smaller size, and round shape are all dominant traits. So is red over orange or golden yellow, but canary yellow is dominant over red... I look at Sweet Siberian and say it is a golden yellow, but it must have some canary yellow genes because I too have had yellow/orange melons show up in first generation crosses in which it is a parent. Confusing!
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Post by reed on Aug 31, 2016 7:14:27 GMT -5
Those are beautiful melons. Good to know that small size is dominate, I want to select for smaller size. This year though the 15 to 20 pounders had better flavor and sweeter. Next year I'm gonna try crossing them on to the smaller ones. Exception was the very tasty and smaller yellow/pink ones. I'm still in hopes to find another of those in the ones not picked yet. I gave some to friends and asked to save save seeds from any that were better than ordinary. Got an envelope back marked "awesome flavor, weird colors". Haven't see an orange one yet.
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Post by philip on Sept 4, 2016 15:10:53 GMT -5
I harvested my first two melons of this year yesterday 
They were both really bad! Not nice-tasting at all! Today i had two more and the same. You try one piece and they throw the entire thing in the compost. I still have a few left to go notably one nice plant with five decent sized ones, but all in all it's like most of the melons i had last year. Tasteless, no sugar, not juicy. Sort of like a floury cucumber. I am going to have to start and search through all my seed bags to try and find where last years super plant came from, cause if all my fruit is like this i am just wasting my time. Having said that it was exceptionally bad year up to mid-june. I am still hoping to get at least one nice-tasting melon this year... |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 4, 2016 16:45:55 GMT -5
Today i had two more and the same. You try one piece and they throw the entire thing in the compost. They seem immature to me. Did you happen to get commercial varieties? That are designed to sit for months on a shelf, and endure all sorts of abuse during shipping? |
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Post by philagardener on Sept 4, 2016 19:36:03 GMT -5
Maybe just let them ripen more, philip . What "clues" are you using to gauge when to pick? They can be quite tricky! |
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Post by glenn10 on Sept 4, 2016 20:08:28 GMT -5
I have had a few spitters this year that were immature looking like Philips and they slipped off the vine just by looking at them. These guys on the other hand were a very welcomed winner from 3rd generation canary happenstance. If i could grow an exclusive melon this would be it! It turned color to yellow and slipped from the vine and has the usual muskmelon stink. Flavor was mostly muskmelonish with a really good sugar level. I did not brix it but to my taste buds it was a 12 plus brix. My family ate all the slices for breakfast and I did not get a chance to measure it. I have 1 melon left from this vine and I will take a measurement. I will be growing the seeds from theses melons I isolation next year in hopes some with these characteristics will show up again and I can select from there on.  |
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Post by philip on Sept 5, 2016 6:45:31 GMT -5
They just came off the vine. You know when the part where the fruit is attached cracks up all around the stem.
They smelled nice, not very strong but nice. I could have probably left them for longer but i doubt that would have changed much.
Anyway there is a few more to go.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 5, 2016 8:33:27 GMT -5
philip , you had much better luck in 2015 so perhaps it was your cold Spring and late start that kept you from having as good a season this year. Are any of your watermelons close to finishing?
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Post by philip on Sept 5, 2016 17:03:01 GMT -5
No, i only had 4 watermelon plants and they were all eaten by some animal.
I will try and grow more next year because they worked better than melons for me last year for some strange reason
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Post by glenn10 on Sept 5, 2016 20:05:49 GMT -5
Philip,It's funny how in your region watermelons work better for you and melons work better for me in my area. I always get some good melons every year while most years it is hard to get a decent tasting watermelon let alone get it to ripen all the way through. This year weather was the best I have seen in over ten years and the first year the watermelons tasted really good.
I have lost quite a few plants and ripe melons to rodents this year I think due to growing on plastic. They seem to have set up home underneath and are tunneling(right at the base of the plants too) and eating like crazy.I will be growing on plastic again next year but I will be buying a lot more mouse traps!
Glenn
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 6, 2016 1:12:00 GMT -5
+1 vote for them not being anywhere near ripe.
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Post by templeton on Sept 6, 2016 8:11:01 GMT -5
Philip,It's funny how in your region watermelons work better for you and melons work better for me in my area. I always get some good melons every year while most years it is hard to get a decent tasting watermelon let alone get it to ripen all the way through. This year weather was the best I have seen in over ten years and the first year the watermelons tasted really good. I have lost quite a few plants and ripe melons to rodents this year I think due to growing on plastic. They seem to have set up home underneath and are tunneling(right at the base of the plants too) and eating like crazy.I will be growing on plastic again next year but I will be buying a lot more mouse traps! Glenn Sounds like you guys should swap some seeds....  Phillip, In my growouts I've noticed a lot of difference in ripeness indicators, and some 'compost melons' like you found. I suspect that it might be a ripeness thing - some of mine if i recall were split and weeping juice everywhere before they really developed flavour - I rejected them since that isn't a trait i want to encourage...easy predictability in ripeness is a criteria i really want - I don't want to have to become a mystic melonsayer to eat nice melons, or fight the ants for split ripe melons. While this is a disappointing result for you this year, it's also not wasted. You know they came from one of those bags, so a bit more labelling next year. Are there any indicator traits that you can pick up from this year that might help selection or culling for next year? keep notes! T |
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Post by templeton on Sept 6, 2016 8:34:19 GMT -5
I'm just curbing my impatience to plant my latest early melon selections. Last season's weren't great, but it was a dodgy year. I've got hold of some bush cantaloupe, and will be looking to incorporate those into some crosses this year. Hmm, maybe i should start soon, and hope for two generations this year...
T
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Post by imgrimmer on Sept 7, 2016 4:39:48 GMT -5
I will try and grow more next year because they worked better than melons for me last year for some strange reason My fruits are far from being ripe but watermelons are doing better than melons this year. There are no fruits on melons but some fruits on watermelons. I really hope I`ll get some seeds out of it... |
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Post by ericbernhard on Oct 6, 2016 14:35:02 GMT -5
imgrimmer, have your watermelons ripened yet? I live in the Westphalia region of Germany in the city of Hamm. I can imagine my climate is quite similar to yours. I had two watermelon plants in a pot on my balcony this summer. About a week and a half ago I harvested two ripe melons. I was able to pick a ripe Blacktail Mountain which weighed around 1470 grams. The taste was very good, very full you could say. And I managed to get a lot of seeds from them. Here is a photo of it:   The other plant in the pot was of the variety Bozeman. The plant more or less exploded out of the pot. I was quite impressed by its growth. The melon that I harvested from it weighed around 3400 grams and I was able to save a ton of seeds from it. The taste was good, but not as good as Blacktail Mountain. Nonetheless, I will definitely be planting it next year since it seemed to be fairly well adapted. Here are some photos of it.  A picture of the Bozeman watermelon with a Euro for comparison.  cut open I am looking forward to next year. The goal will be to cross Blacktail Mountain and Bozeman. |
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