I’m a big fan of Seminole. Good yields, very tough plants, tasty, and keeps well. The flesh could be a bit thicker, but the fruits are a good size for portioning. One or two fruits is usually about right for a batch of pie.
Have you tried eating the half-ripe ones at the end of season as summer squash? It’s pretty good.
That reminds me, it’s time to start my cucurbits!
Ordered more Orange Crisp watermelon seeds from a different supplier as none from my previous order germinated.
After soaking for less than a day, unexpectedly quick germination from my saved seed from the EFN “Small Jadu’i” watermelon that I grew in my greenhouse last year. I’m planning to start a rather large flat of these to give away to neighbors in a month or two.
built my melon patch. put in alpaca straw/droppings under the surface. straw on top. melons so far I have are planted in now; about to direct sow more along the edges.
stickbuilt raised bed thing. burlap was on for a minute to hold the straw while I watered. wire is there to keep the dog out for a week or two (he thinks small plants are like his baby eggs, and tries to incubate them by laying his giant body on top)
Apologies if this is not the right thread, but could anyone posit as to what’s wrong here? Having a dickens of time getting these going and going crazy. I’ve been growing tomatoes for 4 years now, so although I’m far from an expert I at least know what to do for the most part. I’ve never messed anything up this bad even my first time. Heck, last year I just dug up native soil in my garden and added some perlite and the tomatoes grew beatifully for the most part.
This year I used vigoro potting mix for the base mix, it seems to be atrocious as the old reused miracle grow from last year is doing great. These seeds were sprouted over 2 weeks ago and have just languished and stayed stunted, yellow cotyledons now and very purple stems on most. I cannot for the life of me figure out how they ended up this bad. I assumed they were not taking up P so I gave them small dose of fertilizer P/K but they didnt seem to respond.
I looked at my photos last year… this is a week and a year ago and these were around 3 weeks old… feeling a bit bummed as I used up some of the last of my seeds and these may be a dud this year.
Heres some peppers I’m growing this year. This is recycled/re-used miracle grow from last year. But results are fine for the most part. My fan died recently so its a bit too hot in the space but other than that these ghost peppers/habaneros/bell peppers seem fairly happy. Theyre only a week older.I want to put them in larger containers but if the potting mix is screwing up the tomatoes this isnt an option
Delete if this is posted in the wrong place
Did you change potting mix? Lack of nutrients is the likely cause. I would use 1/2 teaspoon of liquid fertilizer per tray of about 50 seedlings. Nitrogen and potassium are particularly needed. 15-30-15 would work or use the miracle grow specifically for tomatoes.
Yes. I usually just grab the miracle grow bags but went with vigoro this year. Mix is about 65% as it comes out of the bag and the rest is half coco coir and half native soil from my garden. There is a ton of fungal activity in the mix I am using in the form of a conocybe (I believe) species that has gone through several lifecycles already. In my very limited understanding I cant see why this would tie up anything in the soil or stunt the plants. I had an apricot graft in the very same soil mix that put on 2ft of growth in 6weeks.
I definitely thought they needed nutrients. In the past 10 days I’ve given them a decent feeding of miracle grow all purpose 24-8-16, then later when that didnt do anything some calmag and 0-10-10 P/K fertilizer. They seem to have continued to worsen which makes me think theyre not uptaking things properly. I dont think I fed over 7-800ppm.
They were under a HLG 100 LED panel. Likely a bit too close at around 8" away, so I could conceive being somewhat light stressed. I also belive LED lights increase the demand for some nutrients vs other lighting. I moved them to being under a 50W T5 set up a few minutes ago to see if they prefer them.
thinking about direct sow for some short season melons here. we only get 100 days give or take. from seed to ripe, it’s not a lot of time
tomatoes I have to start so early. if any aren’t 6 inches or more by now they won’t ripen in time. I cannot direct sow for a crop here with my little space
This definitely turned out to be the case. I ended up having to use very high levels of fertilizer like 1200ppm almost daily or every other day. I think theres just far too many woodchips or organic matter taking up nitrogen in the soil, just an uneducated guess based on the absurd amount of fertilzer I had to use which would have burnt or otherwise killed a healthy seedling plant. T5s also probably helped with lower light intensity
Anyway my season has probably significantly taken a hit because of this but I think I managed to get a few to bounce back and they might reach maturity but I’ll be cutting it close. Lost one whole row except one cell for the German Johnsons so I reseeded it with a cherry tomato. They need to go outdoors soon but they are so far behind unfortunately.
having trouble with what seems to be pollination issues with the variety orangeglo. none of my other melons are having this issue. is this a common occurrence or trait with this variety or should i pull these?
Highs and Lows in our garden this year!
~300 squash/zucchini plants did very well. I had to supplement water for the 3 long rows. They were hilled (tractor and hoe) pretty high, so we walled off the ends with dirt, so there were 2 long trenches between the rows. I used a 275gal bulk tank to water both ends of both trenches, so over 1,000gal of water. It worked very well. I may plant more squash and watermelons soon, keeping this in mind to water in case of drought.
Original okra planting bombed. 6x125ft rows. I counted 30 wimpy plants yesterday…weeds are waist high…but got a double handful to fry. Okra needs more heat to get growing. Don’t Plant Okra in April!! I forgot this from last year. 
Our parish (county), Washington, is known for watermelons. I have tried for 2 years and utterly failed. This year I was determined. I grew plants from seed and planted seeds direct, 300+ plants total. They have done fantastic! Starbrite, Summer Flavor 720, Sangria, Jubilee, Orangeglo, Tendersweet. A longtime grower gave me several tips. I think the best one, that I will start doing with all my transplants is to mix up a bunch of your favorite blue powder fertilizer, I used Jacks 202020, and pour a Solo cups worth of that blue water into the planting hole as you set them out. Mine took off and stayed ahead of the weeds for the first time ever!
My orangeglo did fantastic this year. Definitely something wrong (pollination?) with those. Sorry
Definitely try them again even if they fail this year. They are great melons.
I grew Wilson Sweet this year with about 100 melons set on the vines so far. I picked a ripe one yesterday and cut it earlier today. Flavor was affected by heavy rainfall over the last week, but was 10 times better than any watermelon I could buy at the store. Ranking it with the best I’ve grown, I have had better flavored Ledmon, Bradford, Wibb, and Yellow Moon & Star. Caveat that the best I’ve had were all grown with at least 2 weeks of sunshine and no rain just prior to harvest. I’m fairly sure these Wilson Sweet will hit that level of flavor once the rain subsides. One thing I like about Wilson Sweet is the size. It is just right for a refrigerator watermelon. I estimate the one I cut today was about 12 pounds where the range from 10 lbs to 15 lbs is just about right for this use.
Pretty much planted these 3 days later. The good news is I didn’t lose any in ground, unfortunately still far behind and not had a ripe tomato yet this year. Too much squash of course however!
