After reading the comments about Orangelo, I looked it up! I am pleasently suprised to find out it’s only 85 days ! That means I could get a chance at growing it successfully here. Now, if I could only find some seeds… About the honeydews, cantaloups, muskmelons, etc… Makes me think of something hapening here.
For some years now, seeds of almost extinct varieties of melons came back on the market and there is a renewed interest for them. Montreal Melon, for example, was once very famous as it was suppose to be one of the best melon in the world… but it litterally grew on horse manure (the time before cars…) ! As it turns out, it’s almost impossible to grow this melon (organically) without an extremely rich soil. The fruits will rot before harvest and\or won’t taste that good.
Matt,
The key to growing melons is loose soil, heat, all day full sun, and
irrigation, when there’s not enough rain. I like to buy my seeds from.
Willhite’s.
Watermelon, unlike other melons, is not considered a high potassium fruit when consumed in measured dietary portions. It is in the Medium category, which means that 1/2 cup servings are allowed in some renal diets. Other melons contain far more potassium and are not permitted.
I believe it’s misleading, with the possibility of being dangerously misleading, to say that kidneys love potassium. Potassium is one of the electrolytes in our bodies. Electrolytes need to be in a proper balance along with fluid levels for our bodies to function properly. Part of the kidneys’ many functions is to eliminate excess potassium along with other wastes from our blood stream in order to maintain the proper balance.
There are times when increased dietary intake of potassium is helpful or necessary, but for those with kidney disease, potassium intake is restricted because the damaged kidneys are unable to properly eliminate the excess. Anyone with kidney problems should consult with a physician, particularly a nephrologist, to determine proper care. They may be referred to a renal dietician for guidance in determining a diet suited to their particular needs.
I’m not shooting the messenger, but the message, itself, could endanger someone’s health.
Anne, our kidneys do not “love” potassium. Any more than any other organ in our bodies. The kidneys have several key functions, one of which is assisting in the regulation of electrolytes in our blood stream, one of those electrolytes being potassium. Our bodies need a sufficient supply of dietary potassium, but not in excess, or the kidneys simply excrete it. As Muddy mentioned, folks with kidney disease should not ingest excess amounts of potassium, as their kidneys may have difficulties excreting the excess potassium. Electrolytes have a very narrow band of normal serum levels, and this balancing act is a critical one. Elevated levels of serum potassium, even slightly above the range of normal can be life-threatening, even fatal. Normal serum potassium range is 3.5-5.1 mEq/L. Very, very narrow, indeed.
Also, I don’t believe seedless watermelons are any lower in potassium than seeded watermelons, and the watermelon seeds themselves, are not particularly high in potassium. Not sure how watermelon seeds “support urinary function”, either. I do know sprouted watermelon seeds are a very healthy snack - high in protein (especially the amino arginine), as well as B vitamins, fiber, and has some degree of trace minerals, most prominently magnesium.
Just want to make sure folks are aware of the facts. If you have data to back up the claims, please feel free to post those, but just wanted to warn folks about taking in excess potassium. It isn’t necessary, only under a doctor’s care, and those with kidney disease need to be very careful.
Yeah, well I guarantee you that seedless watermelon are lower in protein than seeded! I love seedless watermelon but when I was about 10 my older brother taught me the virtue of chewing and swallowing watermelon seeds instead of spitting them out when feasting on watermelon. I found that once I was used to it it increased the pleasure of consuming “real” watermelon.
@MuddyMess_8a, @hoosierquilt
Whoa. PLEASE don’t blow this out of proportion and make it a big target to shoot down. I’m not promoting extremes here nor is anything I said dangerous. I am not encouraging immoderate or ‘excess’ consumption of potassium. Sheesh.
Dr. Reams was a well known soil chemist. You can look up his research and decide for yourself.
Now back to the thread topic.
I’m not saying you did, Anne, but I didn’t want anyone to extrapolate that from your post, and also to clarify that kidneys do not have any kind of propensity for potassium, any more so than the rest of your body Just have to take care in what we say along medical lines.
In his tome The Chemistry of Man, Dr Jensen refers to the kidneys as the potassium organ. This is a book about nutrition.
My comment was not intended to be ‘medical’ but rather nutritional, unfortunately for us, there’s a big dif.
No one has control over extrapolations, no matter how carefully something might be stated. Thanks for your concern.
Perhaps Dr. Jensen is referring to the fact that the kidneys are the main organ in our bodies responsible for regulating serum potassium levels (as well as all our other serum electrolytes). The kidneys do not utilize potassium at any higher rate than any of our other body tissues or organs, Anne. Nutrition or medical,l it’s all the same thing And you’re right - people will do what they will do, but at least they have been warned.
I have a cartoon on the wall in my office that shows a couple looking at
a tombstone in a cemetery. The tombstone reads, " John Jones, gave up
red meat 1978, gave up smoking 1979, gave up alcohol 1980, Died Anyway."
If I lived somewhere warmer I would certainly try many of the longer season melons, but I would still grow a Blacktail Mountain or two. It is a small, crisp, red seeded watermelon that grows really well for me up north, and I assume it would be a very early melon in warmer climates
Thank you for that detailed explanation on growing melons. I’ve never seen growing melons addressed to this extent on poorly drained tight clay soils before (felt like it was addressed directly to my circumstances). I don’t know if I’ll be able to do all the sand part, but at least I’ll be able to refer back to this thread on the secret of growing good melons on tight soil if I ever get more serious about it.
I’ve come across many folks on fruit forums who can’t grow good melons on tight soil. I remember one guy who said he could never produce anything but yucky melons on his soil, which he had to throw out. He complained to his neighbor and the neighbor said he could grow good melons. That year the neighbor gave him some melons, but the guy said those melons were as bad as any he grew, and he threw them out too.
To give you an idea how bad our melons are, I think the seedless melons at the store are pretty good. Isn’t that pathetic
Watermelons are dead simple and fun to grow. Just dump and mound composted cow manure, compost, and/or top soil on a lawn or other open space and plant your seeds. I placed a couple of gallon plastic milk jugs with a pin hole in the bottom around the mound for irrigation. The fun part is watching them swell and grow, and the anticipation is incredible. Growing, eating, spitting seeds from your own melons is a “must do” for every fruit growing fan.
I like everything about ‘Sugar Baby’. Yes they are seedy, but that’s part of the fun.
I agree with everything Clint said above. This is hard to believe, but one year when I was living in a Condo in the middle of town, the guy next door to me bought a couple bags of that processed “cow manure” at walmart (which looks to have a lot of sand) . There was a little area behind the dumpsters that gravel and wouldn’t even grow many weeds. He just laid 2 bags of the manure on the ground, cut small holes, and put in watermelon seeds. They ended up growing big vines and actually produced a few small watermelons. I’m not saying the vines or the melons were on par with traditional grown melons, but I think the fact that he produced watermelons with a dang BAG of manure says a lot about how determined watermelons plants can be.
The other thing I really, really hope that this entire thread does is to encourage everyone to at least TRY to grow watermelons. Ray has laid out good instructions for those with clay soils (and I see no reason someone couldn’t use his method on a much smaller scale- ie buckets of sand and manure instead of truck loads) if you have a small area.
But my point is to encourage you to try it. As many of us have said, it can be remarkably easy to grow watermelons for many areas and soils, and even those with more challenges can probably be successful with some fairly easy amendments.
The reason I’m trying to be such an advocate for watermelons is that I am just sooo certain of how much all of you would enjoy it. You folks spend 4-5 years of hard work and patience just to get a few pounds of fruit. You can spend 3 months and not much work and grow HUNDREDS of pounds of watermelons. Even with an area the size that a fruit tree (and related spacing) takes up you can grow an amazing amount of fruit with watermelons. Now of course I’m not trying to say a watermelon is equivalent to our beloved tree fruit, but for a group of people who love fruit I know how much you’d love picking a 25 pound watermelon from your own backyard, carry it in your house, and immediately have all the fruit your family can eat in one setting. It’s sweet, delicious, refreshing, juicy, etc. I think you get my point…for a group of people who love fruit, I think watermelon is one of the best ones and its often overlooked because people have heard they are hard to grow, or they tried once and failed and assummed it isn’t possbile where they live, or because they are intimidated be watermelon growing for some reason that probably isn’t true (take too much space, climate conditions aren’t right, etc etc.
So get out there and grow yourself some watermelons! Its actually not even too late today for some of you. Yellow Doll is ripe 65-68 days from planting (shortest season melon I know of) and sugar babies take about 75-78 days.
This is my biggest frustration in melon growing: when to pick for optimum flavor. Every year it seems like I pick a few too early and then overcompensate and pick a bunch more too late!
Just have to take care in what we say along medical lines.