It’s been an interesting year so far on the watermelon front. I direct seeded Congo and Crimson Sweet about 5 weeks ago, one hill each with 7 seeds. Five of the Congo sprouted and now have their second set of leaves. However, only one of the Crimson Sweet sprouted and this morning I discovered that something had nipped it off at the stem. So no Crimson Sweet this year. Obviously I picked up a bad batch of seeds (Burpee take note!).  Luckily, my wife also started a bunch of Moon & Stars and had several that had gone unplanted; so now we have two mounds of Moon & Stars. Let’s hope we can keep the cucumber beetles off of them.

Watermelons are such luscious plants. If you plant them in a raised bed the vines just pour out, cascading over the sides of the bed and threatening to take over the garden. Last year was our first stab at growing watermelons. My wife started some Moon and Stars from seeds. We also bought some seedlings of Charleston Grey from Lowes. Both worked out pretty well for us and produced a number of large, sweet and delicious melons. And just like the watermelons from our childhood, these have seeds! I am so tired of those bland seedless atrocities found in the supermarkets. What’s summer without watermelon seeds, I ask you.

This year the wife has once again started moon and stars from seed. I decided to take a flyer on two new varieties. Congo is a 90-day classic All-America winner that gets up to 35lbs. Crimson Sweet is an 80-day wilt resistant round melon that grows to 25 lbs or so. These were direct seeded yesterday so we’ll see how it goes.