mediaOrganic » Watermelons

a nice pair of melons

john — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:28:13 +0000

The watermelons are coming along nicely. They are about the size of a large grapefruit and growing rapidly. All told there are seven of them.

Watermelons on the vine

john — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 20:29:27 +0000

Watermelons appear to be right on schedule. I found lots of male blossoms and multiple female blossoms and several baby melons are now growing. Sure wish I knew what variety I planted. Weather has been good for melons this week, mid-80s with moderate to high humidity and thunderstorms every three days or so. Rain barrels are full, life is good.

melon update

john — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:10:32 +0000

Just a few photos of our water and musk melons. Both are just waiting for the weather to get into the 80s. We’ve had a few warm days but mostly it’s been cooler and a little rainy. You can see the musk melons already have blossoms. Last year at this time most of my watermelons had been nipped off by either bunnies or cutworms. This year I made sure to put row covers over them until they were large enough to survive a few nips here and there.

watermelon update

john — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:20:18 +0000

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

john — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:22:55 +0000

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.