They most can and often do especially if the ground is soft and damp. For example, around mulched areas.
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Time to plant Blacktail Mountain for the fall. Already have melons on it! No worries as I planted them 2 weeks ago and had a tray left over I finally got around to cleaning up. Seems the stunting affect made females form quicker. The ones in the garden are blooming males still. I left these around to see how the Epic cell trays with air pruning worked. Five weeks since seed planted and still not root bound.
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Nice.
I’m still trying to figure out when my Blacktail Mountain is ripe!
Here are two of mine. The first still has a green attendant tendril.
The second one has a dried tendril. Is it ready?
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I let them dry all the way back to the stem so the entire tendril is dry. But even then I have come across too ripe or under ripe. BM seem to me to be harder to get perfect than most.
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It’s hard to wait isn’t it?
The good news is I have these two that are full sized and another two smaller but getting there and another 3 small ones…
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That’s the hardest part of growing fruit in my experience.
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I find if I look at the tendril, the ground spot, and the sound together, I can most accurately predict ripeness. One out of three means leave it, two or three out of three means pick it, depending. Ill also check daily when theyre nearing ripe to get a sense of their progression. Depending on weather, they may appear more or less ripe, but that doesn’t always correspond to their actual ripeness, I find.
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I’ve got a sunny week ahead so hopefully the first one finishes
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Throw a little pine straw over the melon in your other post (pictured) to stop the sunburn, it can ruin a melon.
I’m a bit confused about sunburn on melons. At least around here (there is a watermelon festival annually in the next Parish over) we grow out melons our in the bright sun all summer.
Is sunburn on melons when they suddenly are exposed to direct sun after not being exposed ?
My Blacktail Mountain melons have seen sitting for a few months getting bigger in the direct sun and are as dark as can be on top.
Dark colored melons like black diamond, blacktail mountain are more subject to sun-scald. If you look good at people selling watermelons you will sometimes see sun-scaled melons.
I know the area well,(Washington Parish Watermelon Festival) been living around these parts over 70+ years. I live in the adjacent county bordering LA.
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So if I’m. If seeing damage I shouldn’t worry about it right?
Went out to see the melons. OK I do see sun scalding on them. I rotated them a bit.
Looks like the one melon with a partially dried tendril has dried all the way to the vine now.
Will pick tomorrow and see how it is, whether ripe or not, and whether the sunscald did any internal damage.
When mine began showing sunscald in 100F heat they were already over ripe. I’d rather eat underripe watermelon than over ripe and mealy.
Picked the first Blacktail Mountain watermelon.
Will take a few hours to cool down in the house. Will cut it do it fits in the fridge so I’ll know if it’s underripe ripe, or overripe.
A bit under 12 lbs.
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I posted the ways to tell if a watermelon is ripe. Read the directions!
- Check the tendril, if brown, maybe ripe.
- Check the ground spot, larger is better
- Feel the surface, lumpy/bumpy is ripe, smooth is not
- Cut the ripe watermelon and enjoy.
Shibumi, consider that you have a proclivity to picking them before they are ripe. A ripe watermelon is at the perfect stage for eating for about 3 days.
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I don’t have anything to judge against but not bad. I don’t know how many days past this stage it’s safe to wait… Ate a piece warm.
Once cut if I look at the margin where the red flesh changes to white before the green rind, there is a bit of a yellow color.
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That’s pretty decent, I’d be happy with that.
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It’s so funny growing food. It’s not like I had anything to do with breeding the variety or did anything more than plant the seed and make sure it got a bit of water…but it’s awfully pleasing to pick, cut open, and eat a homegrown anything.
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Last year I had a nice one from my compost, in fact it turns a non eating melon daughter into one who likes to eat melons. So this year I’m growing 3 plants and I see nothing.
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In Japan they just do an early crop in some areas to avoid the hot sun on their melons as the quality was lower as the summer went on. So the Japanese researchers did a study on shading the melons. One option was shading the patch once melons started but that cut the photosynthesis off too much. Next option was covering individual melons which lowered the internal temperature by a few degrees. They find the cell structure of the melon was changed by the high heat. Also the brix was higher in shaded melons. Bottom line was plant used extra energy to try to mature melons in full sun. Shaded ones put that energy into a higher brix. Shading was recommended only for producing premium priced melons due to high labor cost.
I shade mine early to keep birds and whatever away. Of course I get lazy as the excitement of new melon season wears out and the later ones don’t get shaded probably when they need it the most.
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