I don’t know what happened to my watermelons this year but everyone died of some disease or something. All of my other melons did great though and I got my first Crenshaw today and several orange fleshed Honey Dew. This is my first year trying those and they are delicious! Nothing compared to a Crenshaw though. I can’t wait to try some of the melons I found recommended here for next year!!! I had to add this. My little girl just had some and said “Man! they should make a candy like that!!”
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Oh Holly, I am so sorry, and I hope my pic is not a constant reminder of munching critters. If you do not spray? Do you net? Netting would help you immensely. Your garden is still beautiful and you have lovely melons to look forward to. 
@mrsg47 :
Well, I had heard fireblight wasn’t that big an issue around here, and I have been trying to not spray unless I have some reason to and even then trying to stick with organic stuff. By the time I realized it was fireblight, it was already well into second year wood on two trees. I read that there isn’t much you can do about it by that point regardless of what you are willing to spray. Following Scott’s low impact spray recommendations, I’m going to do a copper treatment at green tip to pink next year and hope for the best.
As far as netting goes, I haven’t had as much time for the garden this year and have not had such trouble with rabbits before this year. I guess I was hoping they would give up and move on. They don’t seem to be eating stuff at this point and I haven’t seen them lately, but they did a lot of damage in spring and early summer. They even ate rosebushes and other perennials at my neighbor’s house, so the prospect of netting everything in my yard is not appealing. I’m thinking about limiting entry into at least the back next year by putting wire mesh against the bottom half meter of my fence and maybe making a box trap.
Good plan. Keeping them out of the garden has attractive solutions.
Crenshaw is one of the few melons I’ve never grown, but I am curious about. Do they taste more like cantaloupe or honey dew or something else? Any other way you can describe taste? Sounds like they are one of your favorite melons, is that right? Thanks for anything you can tell those of us who haven’t grown or even tasted a Crenshaw!
Crenshaw is very similar to the taste of what most think about as a cantaloupe but is actually a musk melon. The main difference is that it is a little sweeter and a bit more complex and it doesn’t have the “musk” after taste. It is often referred to as the Cadillac of cantaloupes. They are awesome because you can’t go wrong with picking them either because the day before they are perfect, they will start to yellow. In the pick that I took, you can still see green. The next day after sitting on my counter, it was almost all bright yellow and it was amazing as usual. I can’t eat a regular musk melon any more because Crenshaws have ruined me. 
I hope that helps.
If there are others here that have tried Crenshaw and prefer other varieties to this or the Original Israeli, I would love to hear about them and why as I have grown over 50 varieties and these are the 2 that I just can’t do without.
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One plant will be good for me.
Tony
If they are that’s a very unusual melon. All the watermelons I’ve grown need lots of active leaves thru fruit ripening. Then the fruit goes bad quickly. Those leaves have been dead a long time.
Looks like a seed company
I find that extremely hard to believe. How does one get 131melons to
all ripen at one time and from one vine. Notice how they’re all conveniently
lined up. BS!!
They must have removed the fruit for a few months to let the plants get really big.
edit: I missed that it says 90 days… skeptical as well.
I’m with others here calling BS! There are about 10 things I can think of that would seem to make what is shown impossible- lack of leaves, length and shape and layout of vine, uniform size and shape of melons, all of them being almost the same size, grown in what looks to be almost complete shade, etc etc. Its an interesting photo and I can’t prove its not true…but I’m HIGHLY suspicious. It’s not like it would be the first internet photo hoax !!!
I hate to admit when I’m wrong, but when I am its the right thing to do. I’ve done a fair amount of research on this and must admit it seems to be true. That being said, it sounded like it took a “team” of people working every day on these, along with genetically engineered seeds (not that I want to start a GMO argument because I don’t) and who knows what else. But it does appear one plant grew those.
Thank you, I never had a doubt about the yield just about the quality.
One thing I found interesting about this record setting watermelon thing is that all the articles made a big deal out of the fact that the growers carefully controlled the TEMPERATURE of the water. It never says if it was hot or cold or what temperature it was, but I sure wouldn’t have thought controlling the temperature of the water would have any impact. hmmm?
WHAT!!! Are you saying that not everything on the internet is true? Al Gore must be irritated!
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“Quality did not suffer given the large quantity”.
What does THAT mean? Taste? Nutritional value? You cannot address ‘world hunger’ with something that lacks any nutritional value. (I’m reminded of the plastic rice that was produced in China.) But clearly world hunger is just a PC add on, as they had their sights on Guinness.
Why do they not show one cut up? I would love to know the brix since it is a measure of mineral transport.
And why don’t they show the leaves? Is this some type of frankenfood?
Just sayin’
This is pure speculation on my part but maybe they removed all the leaves so there could be easier tracing of the vines verifying that they are from one plant. I know this could be achieved without removing the leaves but you certainly wouldn’t be able to tell it was one plant in a picture had they not removed the foliage??? That said, I still want to know, HOW DID IT TASTE?!? Who cares if you were somehow able to grow the worlds most productive watermelon plant if it tastes like a cucumber!! 
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yes, after he “invented the internet” he must have been shocked to see that some people used it dishonestly! And BTW…please don’t ever link internet inventor (please) Gore with TN. He grew up in the Fairfax hotel in Washington, DC. For some reason he claimed to be from Carthage, TN. That’s a tiny little town, yet no one can ever remember seeing him there. His dad did own land there, but that’s as close as he gets to being a Tennessean!
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