looks like my yellow doll watermelon seedlings are doing well with the transplant. i direct sowed orange fleshed honeydew but no sprouts yet.
I grabbed the yellow doll on a whim from a local nursery because my sugar babies like just didnt germ. Anyone ever grow them?
I did a bunch of transplants of the melons I direct sowed before the 90F weather (and subsequent freeze a few days later). These ones had black plastic on both sides (like 1’ x 5’ strip on both sides to help heat the soil, hopefully.) I’m not sure if they are going to come up or not. The melons I planted in the other spot 6 of 7 have sprouted at this point. Only grown a quarter inch, but clearly alive. The former might have been further along and killed by the drop in temperature to around 32F.
I’m starting Lily Crenshaw, Sara’s Choice, Fast Break (new for me), Ha’ Ogen (my most reliable here), and some Lofthouse landrace seeds that I have selected for a few seasons (keeping the fastest, best tasting ones). And Sweet Dakota Rose watermelon. I always wait until June 1 to plant here, and find that I don’t want starts getting too big before I transplant. It is always a race to ripeness in this location. 
we have a frosty night coming up in the high 30s on Sunday but my started melons are in. reserved seed for lofthouse, Minnesota midget to direct sow as backup after that last cold night.
I remove the bottom of plastic 1 gallon bottles and put them over my melons. Might help a bit as long as nights are still too cold.
I wasn’t going to plant watermelons this year, but I went to plant some nasturtiums and what looked like watermelon seeds tumbled out of the packet which made me think it must be fate speaking to me, not some careless seed packer. So I planted some Nancy and Red ‘n’ Sweet seeds that I already had on hand in that location, but haven’t planted these yet since I’m not sure what variety they might be. I was looking at the Southern Exposure site and thought maybe they were Blacktail mountain since the vendor sells those and these seeds were pretty small for watermelons so might have come from a smaller fruited variety. Anyone grow Blacktail and think that seems right?
If anyone wants to see what other candidates there are, here is the SE watermelon seed page. Although if they get them already packed from somewhere the possible candidate pool could be a lot bigger.
And if anyone near Arlington VA wants to stop by to pick up some mystery seeds and join the adventure, let me know.
siberian watermelon and Minnesota midget are beginning to vine out in the tall bed. all the others are still a patch or clump. the soil in this bed gets hotter early.
I was on a planting spree so I popped a pair of hearts of gold melons that I’d started on the 7th. They’re just on their first true leaf, so I hope the slugs don’t get ‘em because I only have 1 backup
