I made it 4 days! The cloudy rainy season has arrived, so the greenhouse is cold and dark and I found a new ceiling leak above that watermelon, so decided to go ahead and pull it earlier today and threw it in the fridge to chill. Here it is…
Small Jadu’i, a little over 3 pounds and definitely a little underripe but not as much as you’d think from the pale color and white seeds (they actually have white seeds with black dots even when fully mature):
I assume it’s some combination of under-fertilization, cool temperatures, and low pH, but it still was a nice crisp watermelon that I was happy to eat. I’ll let the next one go a lot longer.
5 days at 90F would have done it. 5 days with an average of 65 or 70 would be about half speed, or around 10 days to fully ripe. I’d still say you did good with it. 12 is not bad for a watermelon. I would guess flavor was weak near the rind which is normal when lower temperatures hit just before a watermelon ripens.
I have late crop Ledmon watermelons that are around 10 pounds in the garden. My other watermelons are history though I still have a few to collect seed out of. My garden is full of ripe peppers and peanuts that need to be harvested. I’ll be busy tomorrow!
90°F was what it was hitting in the greenhouse on those last few sunny days, but yesterday it topped out a bit above 70°, and the forecast looks like more of the same. I was more worried about the constant unwanted watering from the leaky hatch in the roof above it, figured it would get more watery rather than sweeter at this point.
The other vine is not under any leaks as far as I can tell, though who knows where its roots have gone.
I just now read that the old Jadu’i was a winter storage melon, insofar as Palestine has a winter, so maybe for my second one I’ll let it sit for awhile after harvest?
It’s Downy Mildew season now that fall temperatures are favoring that disease in watermelons. Usually attacks oldest leaves first so you might notice leaves around the crowns looking curled inward and almost black. It quickly spreads to the rest of the plant unless it has been diligently protected with Chlorothalonil or Mancozeb. Those chemicals have no affect on active disease. Commercially some systemic fungicides are available once the disease appears.
Unlike some watermelon diseases, this only attacks the leaves, not the petioles, stems or fruit. Also know as “Wildfire” disease as it can spread over the entire plant in a few days.
Looking at the attached photo you can see a large dead area. Above it you can see the fungal growth that is visible on wet mornings on the underside of leaf. That leaf was far away from center of patch growing along top of waist high fence so plenty of air circulation but an over night dew is enough for spores to germinate where I didn’t spray well enough.
There is no resistance in watermelons. It doesn’t overwinter in cold areas but spores from southern states blow in causing initial infections.
Downy Mildew exists in two forms. One attacks cucumber and cantaloupe. The other watermelon, pumpkin and squash.
Fungicide resistance varies between the forms but for resistance management once a fungicide is shown ineffective, it is not recommended for any use in DM susceptible crops.
Picked my one and only OrangeGlo last week. The tendril was just starting to die back, but I was afraid someone would steal it so I picked it. Sounded “hollow” when thumped despite the green tendril. I finally cut it open last night, and it seems like the center was just shy of being overripe (tasted great, nonetheless) while the flesh near the rind was a little lacking in sugar. Is this unevenness a varietal thing or would waiting a few more days have been better?
Started ordering my seed for next year. From Willhite: Summer Flavor 720, Sweet Texas Red, Orangeglo, Starbrite and Yellow Belly Black Diamond. The yellow belly trait is dominate so might be fun to cross with something to make it easier to tell when ripe.
I picked up orangeglo, collective farm woman, pocket melon and an early honeydew. this thread has given me a long list to wish for over winter when I do the seed shopping.
@GrapeNut I would have waited to pick, then eaten sooner. but I pick early for the same reason sometimes
Another great tasting Harvest Moon seedless- but this one has a few seeds. I have one more of these in the house and another that might make it if I don’t get frost till mid October.
Hi fellow watermelon growers
It’s practically the end of the season and I know I come too late to give you all this information, but you should find it useful in the future: watermelons store extremely well in room temperature for at least a month, and in colder spaces two months is a norm. I’m speaking from experience - every year I harvest more or less 250 kg (over 500 pounds) of watermelon of many different varieties, and since I’m the only watermelon amateur in my household I wouldn’t be able to go thru all of it if it wasn’t for their durability. If I harvest my last watermelons, say, the end of August, I keep most of them in a storage room of 16-18 Centigrade (60-65 °F) and when I’m getting near the end of my stock around the end of October the watermelons are still perfectly fine. Usually one out of twenty will go bad, especially if harvested when already overripe, but otherwise they’re fine. Some of them I keep at room temperature for 3-4 weeks and they’re also in perfect condition when opened - just as if they’d been picked from the vine the day before. I dunno how it works, but it works. Watermelons are just that awesome
And this is what’s weird to me - I’ve gone through this thread and noticed that most people don’t store watermelons for longer than two weeks, more or less, and I’m currently eating through my Crimsons which I picked somewhere around mid August and that would be 6 weeks already, and I’m not an enthusiast of “crappy” watermelons either. This year’s crop is not as great as I would desire (both taste- and sizewise) due to a bout of gummy stem blight, but the flesh of the fruit I cut open today is no different to the ones I cut in August. I’ve been storing my watermelons like that for years and honestly I thought everybody did that, thus when I came upon this thread and read about struggling with fridge space and what not I was kinda… confused. No other fruit or vegetable stores so well as watermelon in my experience and it’s one more thing I love about them - they’re the only ones I don’t need to think too much about in terms of where and how to keep them in a good condition.
I still have about 12-15 watermelons of smaller size (some Sugar Babies and Mini Blues) to eat in October and if I don’t forget I’ll post a few pics of them cut open.
Here’s Petite Sweet, a 1970 release from Kansas by the breeder of Crimson Sweet. It’s a cross of Crimson Sweet x New Hampshire Midget. Despite all the rain last weekend from Ophelia, it was still sweet tasting. Most I picked this summer had hollow hearts and were 10 to 12 pounds. Not as early as stated and a bit hard to not pick too soon.
Goes on my do not plant list. Wibb and Wilson Sweet are better choices for flavor and no issues with hollow heart with those.
Perfectly flavored Orange Crisp today. Really hit the spot on a 90 degree October day in Minnesota. Weather is nuts but great for ripening up some late watermelons.
