Thank you for the information. I will place a Sandhill order this fall.
yeah fusion talking them up has def convinced me too… im going to grab a watermelon, a muskmelon, celery, and sweet corn. any suggestions?
Watermelon for you should be short season, probably small size, probably red. Glenn sells Blacktail Mountain which is one he developed. I had mentioned Wibb earlier. It is a truly superb watermelon with the high crimson gene. if you are adventurous, give Luscious Golden a try. If you want a pink/red flesh, get Ledmon.
Susan Healy is one melon I’ve grown for Glenn several times over the years. If you really like the taste of a cantaloupe, it is hard to beat. Romanian Green is another that makes huge melons and tastes very good.
Buhl sweet corn is arguably one of the best open pollinated varieties. It is a bicolor with both yellow and while seed. I saved white seed only when I grew it a couple of years ago so this year i am growing out an all white version. I won’t be able to tell you much about it until after harvest, but from the look of the plants, it is going to be at least as good as Buhl.
I rarely grow celery as it is hard to grow with the heat. But you might like Golden Self-Blanching.
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I WISH I had spent a little time starting some of the melon seeds I got but they’re so damn finicky about getting leggy, bleh. Thinking I’ll grow them next year, I did throw some into the ground in a couple places but of course I HAD to accidentally grow a pumpkin plant for my trouble xD I don’t ev… yeah halloween pumpkins, problem is it’s growing right on the outside of my soybeans lol
nice, i have a few almost ripe of these too
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Grocery store red seedless has surprisingly grown yellow watermelons. This pollinated very early when the plant was small and long before my others grew and stayed very small softball size. sightly over. It has the crispness of its parent but none of the flavor. There are 4 more newly pollinated, beautiful melons on its vines 3x bigger already and we are hoping with more flavor. Unfortunately, I saved seeds from maybe 8+ melons, all mixed up and have absolutely no way of telling whether I’ll grow this again in the future. I also had seeded maybe 6 indoors and this was the only one to germinate. I get basically 100% germination outdoors in the heat for watermelon so I tried more in June and none grew.
7/20 had to pick an early moonbeam because the vine that one was on was progressively wilting and dying and I didn’t want whatever the problem was to spread. Didn’t take a picture. Thought it would be quite under, though the tendril was just starting to turn. It actually cracked right open when the knife went in and was delightful. Only a little under. Had decent flavor and sweetness. 2 really nice sized ones on the plant that iol pick as soon as the tendril goes. Concerned about the forecasted storms…no whammies, no whammies…
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Charentais. Split from the big rains a few nights ago and I missed it until today. Crunchy underripe, but great flavor and sweetness, so it wasn’t far off. My charentais are all teeny tiny this year, but the vines are only just starting to really fill out. I have higher hopes for August.
Also picked and enjoyed our second sugar baby today. It seems melons are ripening fasted from pollination to harvest this year. Significantly less water, but maybe it’s the waves of extremely high heat?
Next day- picked one of the gorgeous early moonbeams. About 8.5lbs and it’s perfect! And, I’m appreciating the stupid cold spring for teaching me to plant rounds of melons as we have plants at all stages now hopefully for melons through September.
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Dang, thats a nice melon! (Moonbeam.)
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my melons are just now beginning to flower. they have been vining for a while.
this is Oregon, the blacktail mountain and nancy are barely beginning. MN midgets just vining now. always feels like I’m far behind here with melons, we get hot days early but the nights stay cool into June.
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Me, too. I rarely harvest more than a couple melons. I need to find some that will ripen from direct sowing in 75 days or less, probably.
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i do soil blocks then into the ground, it’s the only way i ever get anything. i just need to learn to wait until the soil is warm enough for em to put them out.
I picked the first ripe Petit Gris de Rennes a few minutes ago and put it in the refrigerator to chill. They are larger than normal this year running between 5 and 6 pounds. Excessively high amounts of rain over the last 3 months made them grow very large.
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Is it possible for watermelon to be ripe before the tendril goes? I’ve never picked a green tendril one. But I had 2 early moonbeams pollinate on the same plant (different vine) the same day and one was the picked Saturday perfect and the other still has a green tendril. anxious.
Somewhere around here I posted the different ways to tell if a watermelon is ripe. This should be the list.
- brown tendril
- large ground spot, it expands in the last 2 weeks as the watermelon ripens
- thumping it with a finger gives a distinct muffled thud, takes practice, but is reliable
- The surface develops a lumpy bumpy feel which your hand can detect by rubbing the watermelon
- It feels somehow extra heavy when you pick it up, takes practice, but is reliable
- Some watermelons change color when ripe, “golden” watermelons usually do this
So to answer your question, no, I’ve never seen a ripe watermelon without a brown tendril, but you can use the other indicators to make a decision. Watermelons grow at different rates even on the same vine.
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My watermelons aren’t ready yet but I will save this post for a reference. Thanks
The tendril is reliable for me, but if you’re cramming too many into a small space and move the vine to ameliorate the insanity you created (my, um, friend has this problem, sometimes) you very often take out the tendril.
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Someone has found my muskmelon vines and seems to like them. I’ve got 4 or 5 plants and they all look like this
I took some photos of my WIP melons a day or two ago.
Piel de Sapo (“Santa Claus”) melon. Never grown one before. Are they full-slip? And do they get aromatic? I need to check.
Two Hannah’s Choice F1 melons. I got one last year and it was really good. Changes color and comes right off when ready.
Honey Dew…I planted Green Honey Dew as well as seeds I saved from an orange fleshed one, so the inside will be a mystery. Pretty sure all honey dew are cut from the vine. I assume the tendril will dry and it’ll stop being disgustingly hairy to the touch when ripe.
It’s related, so basically a melon, too. My dad’s allergic to squash (as well as melons, but I’m not cooking cantaloupes), so I’ll give it away. Another one’s setting now and I have a few people who would like to try it.
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