@Mpigg has reminded us that there is nothing cuter than a smiling kid with a watermelon. Here’s mine!
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Opened the biggest wm tonite. It was bright red, crispy, juicy and just plain delicious. Got 2 smaller ones left. One looks like an Orangeglo and the other is a dark stripe. I don’t know what mother nature and you put in those seeds but my friends think I’m a wm genius.
‘Lucky’ is to have friends like Muddy and you. You, sir, are WM God.
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OG originated as a red melon and was then hybridized to it’s orange
color. Unfortunately, Willhites, which hybridized it has stopped selling
it, because their stock has become harder to germinate and keeps reverting
back to it’s red color. So I’m afraid that seeds are going to become harder
and harder to find.
Lol, great picture!
Mark, I have to tell you…for someone who (I think you said this) didn’t have a lot of melon growing experience, you sure did an incredible job! Those giants like that are fun to grow, and if you haven’t already, I suspect by next year you’ll be doing all the tricks like plucking off all but one melon on a few vines, putting them on small hills of sand to help them grow uniformly and not rot, putting shade screens over them to prevent sunburn, and all the other things big-melon growers do. You’ll also want to order some Carolina Cross seeds (that is, if the one your holding isn’t one of those and it could be?). I think something like 19 of the 20 largest watermelons ever grown are carolina cross. But they still need special care. This year I planted a row of CC but didn’t do anything special and they just turned out a little bit larger than my other melons.
I went through a period where my whole goal and measure of success was giant size, but now I’m back to just growing lots of good tasting melons. The fun thing about those giants- and I suspect even the 2 really big ones you have shown us this year- is that they still taste great, so you can sort of do both (grow giants and have good eating melons) but I gave them off because they are just too impractical. (Lets see you put that thing in your fridge! ha OR eat it without left-overs. ) But I’m really glad you’ve grown such large, nice looking, and probably good tasting melons. You need to enter some in your local fair next year if you haven’t yet.
One other really large variety that I enjoy very much is called Kolb’s Gem (I think its the same as Cobb Gem). You should try them. They are round, and actually produce larger melons than Carolina Cross if you don’t show any special attention to either one. If you’re getting melons like you’ve shown with regular seeds and techniques, I’d love to see what you’d get with specialty seeds like CC or KG and special treatment!
Again, congradulations on an incredible year of melon growing! Your kids sure seemed to enjoy it and so did you, so what more could you ask for? Great job!
Thanks. These are Carolina cross with zero attention. The local fair has a 70 lb minimum so we shall see. They have actually been very poor to eat, So I am told. I don’t enjoy watermelon eating only growing. Next year I’ll most likely go with black diamond and your favorite the orangeglo.
thecityman,
Thank you very much for your detailed watermelon recommendations.
I have never grown watermelons before, and I do not have much gardening space to grow them,
at most one hundred square foot area, and your various postings have been a great help to me.in narrowing down to the two picnic sized
varieties that I should grow, AOTBE.
I have decided on the yellow watermelon variety, namely Orangeglo, based on the experiences and postings of many members.
It is the red watermelon variety that I am not so sure, in particular your description of the Georgia Rattlesnake variety, over this posting and another
in the Gardenweb.com forum, namely your " 2014 Watermelon Report/review ", in the link http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1503262/2014-watermelon-report-review
All this is based on my assumption you are the same " thecityman " as well I stand corrected if that is not the case.
In the Gardenweb site you said these things about the Georgia Rattlesnake watermelon :
" I have 5 standard varieties that I grow every year and which serve as my dependable harvest melons."
" It is no accident that I am reviewing this melon right after Orangeglo. That�s because, for me, these are a very close second and may well be tied for my all-time favorite watermelon "
" From the time they first are ripe enough to pick, you can leave them on a live vine as much as 3 weeks and they will still be firm and good. Also, in my experience the G Rattlesnakes are one of the most consistently good watermelons I�ve grown "
" Out of around 20-25 Georgia Rattlesnakes I cut and tasted this year, every single one was as sweet and juicy as the others. "
" In general, I just can�t say enough good things about this melon. I have to give it a 9.5 out of 10 and I really can�t say why it isn�t a 10 other than I�m optimistic that an even more perfect melon is out there. ".
Yet, in the space of roughly one year and nine months, the same watermelon fell out of your “standards” list, saying " But they are unpredictable, often turn out deformed, and are really hard to tell exactly when to pick " and " So while a perfect GA Rattlesnake might rate higher to me, its not consistent enough to be on my “standards” list. "
I apologize beforehand if you feel that I am taking these quotes out of context and urge all to read the full postings to make up their own minds about it.
May I know what has happened ? Right off the bat I was thinking to myself “seed quality” given that you have twenty to thirty years experience in growing watermelons, but I would rather hear from you than than my own half baked guesswork and full ignorance on what is going on. As it is right now, I may go for the same or Crimson Sweet based on your reply.
Thank you very much once again.
First, let me say thank-you for reading my posts and watermelon review. I didn’t do one last year OR this year, and I’ve felt bad about it. I grew around 10 varieties this year and 6 or so were new to me, so should be reviewed. Knowing someone might actually benefit from those reviews encourages me to do another one for the past year.
Now, as to your questions. Yes, I’m the cityman from GW also. I think you’ve basically just discovered how unscientific and subjective my poor rating system is, and also how my typing is actually faster than my brain sometimes. After reading your quotes from my original posts, all I can say is they don’t make a lot more sense to me than to you. Sorry. I never intended Georgia Rattlesnake to be in my list of “standards”, even though it did sound like that. But really the main reason I didn’t is that I just haven’t grown them enough. I don’t change my “standards” list very often, and certainly don’t add one to it without having grown it for several years. This year is a perfect example of why… In spite of using the same soil, same location, same amount and frequency of fertilize, and so on, watermelons can vary substantially from year to year. It may indeed be the seeds, but I get most of mine from the same source so you’d think they would be fairly consistent too. Yet I have found that you can’t get a reliable opinion from just one year. The reason I say this year is a good example is that my favorite melon-and the one you said you were going to try- (Orangeglo) actually wasn’t all that good this year! I had a few great ones but on average they just weren’t great tasting. If I rated 100% on this year only, I’d have rated it fairly low. But after several years of great ones, I know this year was just a fluke, though I don’t know why.
One thing I will say about Georgia Rattlesnake is I’m not sure I’d call it a picnic melon, which is what you said you wanted. They are long melons, not round. I hope I made that clear. They are smaller than larger long melons like jubilee, but not a LOT smaller. But in spite of my second apparent comments on them, I hold them in pretty high regard overall.
That being said, if I were only growing 2 watermelons as you say you might, I’d almost certainly grow Orangeglo and Crimson Sweet. CS is certainly a picnic melon, and is probably the most dependably good melon I’ve ever grown. It’s for good reason that they are one of (if not the) most popular watermelons grown in America today.
I hope all that helps. I’m sorry about the confusion caused by my apparently inconsistent reviews, but as I’ve said, sometimes melons are just inconsistent and we never know exactly why.
thecityman,
Thank you very much for your kind reply.
I have made just made an order with Baker Creek for Crimson Sweet and Orangeglo watermelons. I also snuck in an order for Blacktail Mountain watermelon as well, in the off chance that I might find some space elsewhere or having the plant trellised so that I may grow it upright in the small empty corner of the garden. That spot may not be so ideal as it only receives direct sunlight for less than four hours a day, but I just want to try.
I am already grateful for your review contributions, for it has greatly helped me to narrow down the list to just two main varieties.
Your generosity and others in this forum is just amazing.
Thank you very much once again.
In terms of determining watermelon ripeness the only technique I find that works is to grow a variety for years and find out what works on that variety, and even then in may not work every year if growing conditions are different. Thumping never works for me on any variety. On some varieties (Orangeglo) thumping is even a bad idea because the melon can split. But Orangeglo will split on me if I look at it too hard…
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Wit respect to Orangeglo, it’s one of my favorite eating melons but I don’t grow it any more for two reasons. The first reason is splits. The rind splits too easily. I have had a rind split while I’m looking at the melon deciding whether to pick it. I’ve had the rind split in my arms after I picked up the melon. The second problem is that critters love it. If I have 10 melons then critters will attack 4 or 5 and 4 or 5 will split.
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No one seems to carry Greystone watermelon seeds anymore.
I just jumped off the deep end!
I just ordered from Baker Creek the following watermelons (days to ripening):
Blacktail Mountain (70)
Ali Baba (80)
Orangeglo (85)
[I already have Crimson Sweet (85) planted]
Jubilee (90)
Moon-and-Stars (95)
I need more land!
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Yep ya did!
I’ve been swimming out there for a while now…buahaha!
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Good for you, Matt! I think you made a lot of good choices. I hope you have great luck and I bet you will. As hard as we all work for years to get a few pounds of tree fruit, its amazing that we can get hundreds of pounds of fruit in just a few months from watermelon, and I for one think it is just as good (though very different, of course). Just remember, watermelons really need a lot of space. You can crowd them a little more than what the packets/instructions may say, but don’t overdo it. And of course the importance of sun cannot be overstated. I’ve grown them with partial shade but there is absolutely no doubt that full sun makes a big difference- both in size, quantity, and quality.
I look forward to following your progress!!! Are you doing any cantaloupes as well? I haven’t been as successful with them but many people are and when they are good, they are REALLY good! Good luck with your watermelons.
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“Orangeglo - This is my all time favorite watermelon and my personal favorite, hands down. It is certainly the sweetest, but the taste is also just a little bit different from other watermelons. Nothing dramatic, and hard to explain, but just a little more “fruity” and not just purely sweet”
I’ve been growing watermelons for many years. I went through a phase about 10 years ago where I was growing Japanese and Chinese varieties. The flavors and textures were a bit different and sweetness was all over the place - some very high and some very low in sugars. I also tried to grow some of the Turkish varieties such as Diyarbakir which produces huge melons.
I love Orangeglo and almost all orange or yellow flesh watermelons. They really do have some kind of extra flavor that you don’t find in red watermelons. Auburn University had a yellow version of their Producer watermelon that was excellent but no one seems to have seeds anymore. AU-Golden Producer : A High Quality, Disease Resistant Watermelon for the South
I’ve never seen Orangeglo top out any brix list though. Here’s a nice list from Washington State and you’ll notice that Orangeglo is a respectable 10.7 and 9.9 but many watermelons were sweeter.
http://agsyst.wsu.edu/watermelonphotos.html
There are also many Asian hybrid watermelons that test out from 12-14 brix. Purdue University did a trial a few years back with many of the newer triploids and I think they all had brix of 11 or 12. Just google “Southwest Purdue Agricultural Center Watermelon and Cantaloupe Variety Trials 2014”
You can only buy seeds of Greystone in commercial quantities,unless
you ask for a sample pack from the hybridizer.
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