Watermelon Growing

I thought you were very clear-and funny! As for things not always translating perfectly, I think you do an amazing job. Remember, I had been seeing your posts for several days before I even knew that you were German! I speak a tiny, tiny bit of Spanish. I think being bi-lingual is hard if you didn’t grow up speaking both. So trust me, you are doing G_R_E_A_T !

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Hi Kevin,
as always your post is very friendly and thoughtful, thanks again.

On the topic I can proudly report this morning I hand pollinated the first female WM flower or at least tried to. Now that I know (thanks to fruitnut) WM flowers stay functional only a very short time I did as rayrose recommended. I picked of a male flower, removed petals and rubbed the male flower to the female (flower that is :smile:).

I too for some reason see only very sparse visits of pollinators. Since I don’t have a whole lot of plants I will continue to hand pollinate. To at least allow bees to fly into the greenhouse I also removed some glass panels, just to be sure. I don’t think I should rely on bees pollinating my WM this year.

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Any flying insect, including wasps will serve as pollinators.

My crimson sweet has its first flower…container grown…15 gallon.

Sort of an experiment. More flowers look to be forming. Hopefully i get fruit set here in the next week???

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You’re ahead of my potted melons. Here they are now.

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I am experimenting with “Moon & Stars”; Dark green rind with yellow spots, dark red sweet juicy flesh, or so the advertising says.

Planted seeds in ground a few weeks ago.
Even the leaves have yellow spots.

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I bought mine at Home Depot about a month ago…so I cheated! They have grown a lot though and are already on the ground creeping away. I have 2 vines (I culled a few)…and probably should just pick the dominant.

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My Moon-and-Stars melon leaves have the same yellow speckles. What an amazing trick of nature.

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I am growing little baby flower watermelons on a trellis. Seems ok so far although hard to tell ripeness because they are green all around. The tendrils is still green so I’m leaving them for now.

Other then these three, i am getting blossom end rot on all newly formed melons. Must be calcium problem but my soil tests very high in ca and have never seen it on adjacent tomatoes. Anyone else had this problem?

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Your melons are getting poor pollination. That’s why the ends are
turning black and will soon abort.

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Good to know. Thanks.

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I am glad you posted this. I was worried something was wrong with my plants from the spots. Ha

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The problem with planting squash near watermelons is not crossing and not disease. It’s competition. Many squash vines are far more vigorous than watermelon vines. This photo shows two squash vines that completely covered 4 watermelon vines among other things.

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Any Jujube trees in the background?

Tony

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Yes, Sherwood and one that lost its tag.

To the far right is a Suruga persimmon. Left of it is Sherwood. Left of Sherwood is the jujube that lost its tag. Most of the other trees are chestnuts, except at the very far left you can see a hint of a Cedrus libani, Cedar of Lebanon.

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My Cream of Sask. ( seeds courtesy of a forum member) has set a lovely round melon. Our nights are crazy cool even for this part of the world. Two nights ago it was 3C. what the heck is up with that?

Thankfully all my melons are started indoors and are in 1 gal pots by the time I set them out.

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You are right, and those are some healthy looking vines. I’ve never had the competition problem simply because the only squash I grow are yellow straight/crook neck and zucini, neither of which run like those in your photos. But I love when my watermelon vines finally reach the stage of your squash vines in the photo because I get to stop worrying about weeds at that point. Just as your squash have done, when watermelon vines reach a certain point of size and thickness, they will shade out weeds! (Or in the case of your squash vines, shade out watermelon plants too!)

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I really look forward to hearing your opinion of those melons. I don’t want to take any of your excitement away, but I’ve grown it and 4 other “white” watermelons and just find them to be not good at all. They just have almost no sweetness at all. Some even tasted a little like cucumber, but none had any degree of sweetness to speak of. Which is frustrating because they descriptions on the various seed web sites makes them sound “sweet and refreshing”. On the other hand, some people certainly must enjoy them. I tend to judge watermelons almost entirely on sweetness so if that isn’t critical to you, then you may enjoy them. Oh…just so you know, the Cream of S. also tend to crack pretty easy once they get ripe, and if allowed to over ripen they will just burst open. Also, keep in mind that they are quite small watermelons, so don’t wait on them to size up too much. Good luck. They certainly do look interesting when cut open at least!

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Thanks, your info on Cream of Sask does not dampen my enthusiasm at all, in fact honest opinion is what keeps this forum from becoming like some of the nursery and seed sites, not everything can be as good as they claim LOL.
I do not expect to like all the varieties I try. I am hoping that maybe the cool ripening conditions may lend some sweetness to the cream of Sask.

I also have an orangeglo that is sizing up pretty well, I would measure it but I am afraid to touch it for fear it will fall off! Since my dismal failure last year ( see up thread) these are looking pretty good. It’s sorta like having a cool pet and I have been tempted to name this melon because, other than grandkids, there is nothing on this farm that my husband has photographed so much.:smile: You have to understand, we do not get fresh grown watermelon up here, and not many people are able to successfully grow them, the season is too short.

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Wow…that is impressive size already. I don’t even have any fruit set yet.

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