Tasted my first home grown Watermelon, yum
The tendril dried to a brown crisp, I wasn’t taking any chances as this melon was lowest on the trellis and the last coon I caught was spotted sniffing it the previous night.
catfood can for scale
My Petit Gris melons in the foreground, these two should be ready soon
The full trellis
Watermelon on the left, cantaloupe on the right. They have taken over the full 6 foot vertical space and are slowly shading out the cherry trees behind them (The owl is useless)
Chicken Peppers under that, and last two steps have Scarlet Select Strawberry from Nourse. The bottom terrace is all runners
Yes, most years maybe water the trees once. 4 times this year, worried all fruit would drop, it’s been that dry. My point was somebody needs to try since in CA they don’t test for things we need here. Sometimes they develop trees that work here, but agree, many do not! Probably most!
It’s my neighbors garage, It’s Boston Ivy, Japanese honeysuckle and few Trees of Heaven trying to compete in between the fence and the garage, my GF likes the honeysuckle so I let it bloom and whack it back. Everything else gets a bit of gylpsophate under the cover of darkness when it gets out of control.
Nice… i’ve always had this idea of growing watermelons on my roof…i have a south facing roof that is non shaded…it just bakes under the summer sun …either that or i need to invest in white metal roofing or solar panels…
I have a wicked case of Early blight on my tomatos, they are growing faster than it can kill the lower braches, so I will get about 80% of my normal harvest, been treating with copper weekly (liqui-cop) it is helping, but we are do for week of showers and high humidity.
I’ve stopped growing cucumbers, and plant my melons out late, around may 1st to avoid any potential problems, virtually eliminated cucumber beetles in my yard. This is the best its looked in a few years, 1st year for watermelon, but I have grown a bunch of different squash and sugar pumpkins over the years.
Got the early blight here, too, but it’s not slowing production, which is out of hand anyway. I’m going to have to start sneaking out at nite and leaving tomatoes on neighbors’ doorsteps
As for melons, I used nematodes to eliminate the cucumber beetles and bacterial wilt, so that now my melons have root knot and anthracnose, instead
How melons ever survived in the wild, I can’t tell
Tony sent me some Pawpaw scions and a lot of them are doing real well.Thanks Tony.
There is one variety though,that I really wanted to grow,his Pawmoya.I grafted one on a potted plant and another to a seedling Kentucky Champion tree in the ground.
The scion on the containerized tree started to grow and then fizzled and the other didn’t show anything from late Spring until just today,there is a little growth poking out of the parafilm.This gives me some hope that maybe both can live. Brady
Finally had one down-pour that lasted for about 30 minutes. Hoping for a thunderstorm tonigh! Rain, oh goodie. My poor trees and plants are so thirsty. My Concord grapes are going wild this year. I swear if I don’t pay attention to a fruiting vine or a tree, it does better without me! Netting comes out tomorrow for the grapes. Cannot wait to try my Hope! The ‘Red Swenson’ did not fruit. Bummer.
You know, at this point I’ve had such terrible luck with mislabeled trees (you personally have alerted me to at least 2!) that hate to even say.! These came from 3 trees that were bought at Lowes, and while I’m generally a defender of big box store tree purchases, when it comes to Lowes its a WHOLE OTHER STORY. Most big box purchases have been as accurate to lable as mail order places, but Lowes is an absurd exception to that. Believe it or not, MORE THAN HALF of the trees I’ve bought at Lowes have been mislabeled! MORE THAN 1 of EVERY 2!!! They’d be better to just put labels on trees completely at random!!! (which is what they seem to do!).
Anyway, that is a very long winded disclaimer before I tell you that these peaches came from Lowes purchased trees which were supposed to be Elberta, but I’m already doubtful that that is what they are. The only saving grace with my mislabeled tree experiences is that in almost every case, my mystery trees have turned out to be great fruit trees- even if it does stink not knowing what they are!
I love the (reported) lateness of fairtime and while it only has about 6 peaches this year, they certainly are going to be very, very late. Here in mid august they are golf ball sized and show no signs of ripening anytime soon.
However, I’m very worried about the tree. Its hard to explain what’s wrong, but generally its just an unhealthy tree. It has spots all over wood and leaves. The leaves all stay curled up/folded inward. Not in the way the peach leaf curl disease does (no bumps, etc) but they are folded in.
Anyway, like you, this peach held special interest for me so I’ll post its progess/performance
Are you saying that when you got rid of your cucumber beetles (by not growing cukes) that the grass in your yard is better? If so, I had no idea they affected grass. I’ve got those beetles in big numbers but they don’t much hurt my garden if its out early. But it they hurt grass, I might work harder to fight them. Just wondering if I understood you right? Thanks
(The owl is useless)
