Blossom end rot has hit an Ali Baba and my two La Bestia melons. Once it starts it grows fast, I checked these melons this afternoon and they had no signs of BER. This evening I walk past the La Bestias (they’re near the pathway) and bam, BER had taken 1/5 of the two melons. Fortunately it didn’t become a problem until the melons were near full ripeness. The La Bestia I think were really close even though the tendrils and spoon leaves were green. The melons had started to yellow substantially.
Both varieties are still fairly sweet despite the lack of ripeness. The La Bestia in this condition taste like average grocery store seedless. The Ali Baba was less ripe but somehow just as sweet. It has a different flavor. Like a bubblegum sugarcane (raw sugarcane tastes awesome by the way if you’ve never had it)
My watermelons have produced pretty well considering that I didn’t do a lot to help them. I’m thinking about adding them to my lower needs vegetable/fruit list.
My Wilson Sweet melon. Don’t know if I’ll get any more but this one was good. Doesn’t taste like the others…it has this sort of vanilla & chocolate flavor lingering in the background when I eat it.
From a distance these remind me of the green bowling ball from the PC game Hyper Bowl that was sold alongside Windows XP.
This Diana melon is mild and sweet with a normal watermelon taste. The melon was still light when the tendril was dry so I let it sit a few extra days. I think I could have kept it a little longer. It looks like it has flyspeck on the underside like a yellow apple often gets.
I’ve gotten some Rockyford melons. They have suddenly began ripening all at once, currently have five in the fridge. Some are only baseball sized, little personal pan melons. I seeded several other types of honeydew and muskmelons but this is all I’m getting.
Any ideas as to what variety watermelon might be? It has pale white/green skin, red flesh, super crisp, seeds but not a lot, and excellent watermelon flavor. Maybe 13-15lbs, not super big. Not oblong or round, somewhere in between. Right up there with the elusive Yumi. Hoping to find the farmer again from whom I bought it from. I think they used it to pollinate the seedless they sold- which wasn’t even half as good as this. These were back nearly behind the truck with the seedless out front, and I had to ask about them to get one. I was told it’s “more juicy” than the seedless, “but it has seeds” (said as though that made it the dunce of the class)
Thanks. Certainly looks like Ace, I just can’t believe anyone wouldn’t intentionally grow this. It’s one of the best watermelon I’ve had all year. I’ll update what it is tomorrow or in a few days if I find the farmer again.
That’s almost certainly not Ace. Ace is very small and very seedy. (The one above obviously wasn’t as ripe as I thought.) It also has the “explosive” trait which means when you slice into it it’ll split right in half.
How big are the seeds? Ali Baba seeds are kinda big. Ali Baba melons can be sorta in-between round and long and at that size (they vary a lot in shape and size)
I have one Ali Baba melon that should be ready soon, I’ll post pictures if I time the harvest right.
Follow up on this awesome watermelon - farmer wasn’t sure, but bought it as a pollinator for seedless from Harris. They were also surprised by how good it is, but said people don’t want seeds. After looking at their inventory, I’ve come to the conclusion they must be Minipool F1 watermelon. Farmer said they usually are smaller. Unfortunately, Harris seems to be the only supplier and they are treated seeds sold in large quantities, so I’ll just have to hope that one of the melons I got was pollinated by itself.
There’s good odds it was self-pollinated, but it’s an F1 hybrid, so the F2 could be waaaay more like one of the unknown grandparents than the one you saved seeds from.
Well unfortunately this Ali Baba wasn’t ripe. The vine it was attached to was dead. So I figured I would pick it. Had most signs of ripeness but wasn’t as heavy as it should’ve been. Oddly enough the super underripe one I had (blossom end rot on the bottom) is sweeter than this one.
As you can see, the seeds are fairly large. Southern Exposure (who I purchased seeds from) says it ‘has few seeds’. I don’t really know what a normal amount of seediness is, so I’ll just show a picture. Not sure I agree with their description.
Some of the few melons that produced good fruit this year. Between cracking and rotting I’m going to go back to a low trellis next year + pay closer attention to them. The orange one I suspect is a Sugar Cube offspring and the white one is a Moonstruck offspring. They aren’t that different from the purchased seed.
