Can't grow watermelon but can grow pumpkins?

It’s pretty early for melons already so those look really promising.

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Northof53,
I suspect by now those melons are looking pretty good!

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Very good, I posted a picture in the watermelon thread. For me the grafting has worked so far, the plants are triple and even quadruple the size of the non grafted ones, and are setting fruit, while the others are just weakly thinking about blooming.

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An update on the grafted watermelons. They did grow and produce very well for me and so far the grafted have outdone the non when planted in the greenhouse where water and weather can be controlled.

The outside plants reacted differently, when the drought set in the ones on pumpkin rootstock were set back more than the ones on their own roots and seemed to need more irrigation. This became a pain as it got hot and dry right during haying season and I certainly didn’t need another job. I let them both deal with what the weather chose to bring, and so the pumpkin rootstock was not much of an advantage. Next year maybe a drip irrigation may be in order, just to see the results.

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@northof53
Are you going to graft pumpkins again this year?

I am, I have done a few already. I am trying Crimson Sweet this time and I will definitely need to irrigate. I have all the hose and drips so hopefully I will get it set up.

I am not sure it was an advantage for my cantaloupe. The three plants grew so well I could not tell where one began and the other ended. Besides, when it gets later in the summer and haying and hauling starts I kind of just picked in a hurry without tracing each vine back to its’ source to get a count on what each plant produced. Any extra work was not welcome at the time :slight_smile:

Even if grafting cantaloupe did not make a difference it certainly taught me a valuable lesson. We can grow cantaloupe up here but you have to start them very very early. No one really grows them because the seedlings you buy are usually in small cell packs and they never get big enough to fruit.

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@northof53
Ursula,
Its been several years now since i first posted this so im curious are you growing watermelon this year and if so what has experience taught you? I think your experiment was fascinating! Have you tried a drought tolerant melon such
as dessert king?

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Sorry for the late reply, some mornings still are hitting -30 C and between wood cutting, animals and seeding the time gets short.

I am back to growing watermelon again. Last year I got lazy in the spring and gave myself a talking to in the fall when I did not have those watermelon and cantaloupe to eat.
I started a couple of grafts this week, I still believe that it is advantageous for the watermelon, but not so much for the cantaloupe. That said, I am repeating Crimson Sweet watermelon grafting along with Petite Gris and Kansas. I will look at Dessert King, but I worry about myself when I start going onto seed sites, I have a weakness for seeds. I think I said this before but my husband likens me to Scrooge McDuck wallowing in his money, only for me it is seeds. LOL.

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Anyone grafting pumpkins again this year?

I am doing the watermelon again. Putting Crimson Sweet on 3 different rootstock, Musque de Province, Sunshine Kobocha squash, and a regular pumpkin. Last year we had a cold summer and most of my watermelon and cantaloupe had difficulty growing let alone setting fruit.

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@northof53

How did it go last year? This website literally has some of the best growers if not the best growers as members. We use some very unusual techniques to grow plants! We make it work that’s what matters!

@northof53

How are things going this year? Anything new to add to your techniques?

Hi clarkinks, things are going pretty good. I am still doing the grafting on pumpkin roots on and off. The better I got at having steady grafting hands the worse my take was. When I was new at it I had wonderful success, strange. I still see this as a very fun project for new grafters, and in some areas it is certainly worth doing.

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The link above has changed some since i posted it in 2016 but the menu’s on the link should still have some resources on vegetable grafting. Kicking myself for not attaching the original pdf back then. It was very detailed instructions on vegetable grafting.

I found this thread very interesting and educational. I myself grow a large pumpkin patch. I invite all the neighborhood kids over each October. But I have never yet got a watermelon to go well for me. You have inspired me to try again. I will be sowing some watermelon seeds this spring too. Thanks for the fun idea @northof53.