New Lineup

It is about mid-season and things are growing nicely. Hotter than normal temperatures have accelerated vegetative growth on melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. It has been windy almost every day since mid-May, which has a desiccating effect, but has kept humidity down. Last year, plants suffered a lot of mildew from extra-humid conditions. I'm hoping to avoid a repeat this year.

Somebody stole a couple of beets from my garden plot this week. That is the first theft I've experienced in a few years. Who steals beets? It doesn't bode well for my melon crop, which should be large. 

I lost a few melon starts early after transplanting to my plot. I direct-seeded enough other melons that I was able to transplant a few extras to make up for the lost ones. The math and new lineup is below.

14 melon starts - 3 deaths + 7 direct-seeded = 18 

• Valencia 4
• D'Amerique 3
• Golden Midget Watermelon 3
• Uzbek Sweetness 2
• Lambkin 2
• Charentais 2
• Vert Grimpant 2

The two direct seeded Valencia are just taking off, while the transplants of that variety are already massive. One of the Lambkins struggled epically before establishing itself and now is buried by an Uzbek. Perhaps it will deliver some late season melons after the Uzbek is tapped.

A backyard raised bed with a hill of Crimson Sweet watermelon
(foreground), a single Sugar Baby watermelon and onion starts for
transplanting later this season to my garden plot. I have written before
about the big-A maple tree in my backyard and the perils of planting
in the raised bed soil. Watermelons in pots are an experiment this year.

Two of the three melon starts I transplanted to pots in my backyard also died. I ended up with one Sugar Baby watermelon as a survivor. It is growing OK, but should have more vegetation by now. I planted a hill of four Crimson Sweet watermelon in another pot in the backyard. Those were store-bought transplants.

At It Again

I began a slow roll out of my melon starts last week. After two weeks of warm, dry, windy weather, it calmed down a little. Daytime temperatures dropped into the 60s with mostly clouds. Hot temperatures are forecast by the end of this week, so the melons will have a few days to establish themselves. 

Melon transplants a week before planting include Uzbek Sweetness,
Lambkin and Valencia. The seeds were sown April 6.

I had 18 starts I grew from seed. I planted two in my backyard and gave two away. My garden plot lineup is:

• Valencia (4)
• Lambkin (3)
• Charentais (2)
• Vert Grimpant (2)
• Uzbek Sweetness (2)
• Ananas D'Amerique a Chair Verte (1)

I also have three Golden Midget watermelon and one D'Amerique I direct-seeded at the garden plot.

I started my seed earlier this year, the first week of April, so my starts are bigger and have more root mass than in previous years. I thought I might get them in the ground earlier, but the weather said otherwise. Despite seeding a month or more earlier, I transplanted them only about 10 days earlier than past years.

This is the first year I've tried Valencia. It is a winter melon that should have a similar growth habit as Lambkin. Its skin supposedly stays green even when ripe, so it could be challenging to determine when to harvest because this variety doesn't slip.

I grew Uzbek and D'Amerique last year with limited success, so I'm looking forward to collecting more data on the growth habits of these varieties. I had only two seeds left from a packet of Uzbek seeds and both produced healthy starts. 

All of my melon seedlings damped off about two weeks after germination. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing your entire crop of melons limp and lying on their sides. I transplanted 18 of 21 seedlings to individual pots in one harrowing night. This was two weeks earlier than I planned, but it was either that or reseed. All 18 seedlings survived.