They’re slowly getting less tiny and haven’t drowned (again) in all the rain we’ve been having.
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I found an unusual watermelon plant today. This is a plant grown from a Ledmon seed originally grown by me in 2017. This plant is definitely different but I am not certain why. Importance? I grow watermelons both for seed and to eat. Propagating pure seed requires roguing out any off type plants. the thing is that this plant is visually so different I’m wondering if it is a result of an undetected cross (from 2017) or if it is a variant of another type. The only plants I’ve seen with leaves like this were treated with colchicine to induce chromosome doubling. My plants have never been treated with anything other than normal care.
Take a look at the leaves on the left, then at the normal leaves on the right.
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That is a healthy looking vine! Too bad it needs to go to keep your seed pure.
I like it enough that I am going to try pulling all the male flowers and let it set a melon or two to trial. I already have 2 plants that have to have male flowers removed to make a hybrid. This just adds a third.
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That would be worth the trouble if you have the time. Have you ever rooted cuttings from watermelons? Take a cutting a grow another plant elsewhere.
I’ve never grown from cuttings, but based on other curcurbits, could probably do it with a tad of rooting hormone.
my patch of melons is starting to vine out. we have 90 days left before the usual frost. I’m hoping the next month or so of real heat is enough for them.
I started most of my melons indoors in March ish. next year I’ll start in February, try to get some size on them before they go out.
February sounds awfully early to me. That would mean 3-4 months indoors. That’s way too long. Mine planted March 8 are a week into harvest. And it’s not an early melon. At 3 months from planting with decent warmth and growing conditions they should at least have fruit.
I think you’d do better starting them in place in April or early May and use techniques like mine,
Or start indoors. At the same time outdoors start warming up the soil. Have bare soil, no mulch that cools the soil. Cover soil with black weed barrier or black plastic. Then cover that with clear plastic. The sun will warm the soil. If you want to go all out, cover the planting spots with insulation at night for the last two weeks before planting. Uncover by day. Soil needs to be above 60F in the morning.
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these were planted in early March indoors. nowhere near harvest, just starting to blossom. I’ve got a greenhouse I can keep at 60F if I need to, or the window start area is always 70F. I have enough room to put them in bigger containers until May or so I think.
we had a cold week this month that set them back I think. if they’d been bigger to start it might have stunted them less is my thinking. all of mine are usually short season varieties I can try to warm the soil too, next season
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Mine were started in my greenhouse in mid-March and have been flowering for a little over a week now, only male blossoms, the first female one will be opening soon. Anything that needs late spring warmth to get going quickly is hard to grow here in the PNW, even in a heated greenhouse. Soil heaters might help though, I’ve never tried that.
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maybe I’ll combine methods: heat mats and early starts, and black ground cover to warm the soil. that way I can get them out mid May, with substantial growth already going. I could keep them in the window area instead of the greenhouse- it’s only 40F in there in Feb so they may do better in the window seat.
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If soil/media temperature drops below 60F there is risk of damping off. Whatever you do inside or out you’ve got to keep the soil warm. First get it warm and then keep it warm.
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I’m growing several small melons though I’ve lost count of what varieties they are…
I just got seeds for Aspire F1. Does anyone have experience growing this melon and want to comment on it?
Even though it’s about to be July, there is still plenty of growing time to plant now for me in south Louisiana.
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temp IS important, but they want LOTS of light, too. We really struggled with starts for years. Being short on space, we’d stick them on the kitchen counter or in our sunniest windows amd theyd get leggy as hell, then be seemingly impossible to transition to outside life. Its often very changeable weather here in spring. Just when youd think they were doing ok, the wind would whip them around, rain would knock them over, or the sun would scorch them. As the sun gets higher, the plants get exponentially less light through the glass. plus its overcast here for days during seed starting season. Id use CFL’s as supplemental light back then, but it was too low wattage, to far away, and too diffuse to support growth much beyond the initial stages.
Making a dedicated spot for seedlings on our new porch, and outfitting them with strong dimmable LED grow lights has upped our game so much. I still have stuff growing under them. its been raining a ton here. ~15” in the last few weeks. 3” just 2 days ago. I have a flat of maypop seedlings, and another with some backup melons, fig cuttings, dwarf tamarillos and some tree collards. They would all be drowning right now, but instead theyre on the seedling shelves under the lights putting on growth. At $70/, theyre a little spendy considering they only really do one flat worth, maybe a bit more. But similar lights ~10 yrs ago were in the $300/ range. They do seem to work a treat. I recommend them.
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I’ve got a big LED panel for my window starts. the window is just out of the way, so they go there
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I grow muskmelons and honeydew melons in SW Canada (Vancouver, BC) successfully without starting them indoors. I just sow them pretty early under a poly tunnel and keep them covered until female flowers appear. Last year I sowed on Apr 9 and harvested the first honeydew Jul 22. I was a bit late this year; they were sown Apr 25 and May 3, and I just noticed a honey dew a bit larger than a ping pong ball yesterday. That was from the May 3 sowing.
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That’s impressive! No heat source, just covered with poly?
I have had better success in the past with small muskmelons, but have never succeeded with watermelons yet. I’m hoping the ones in the greenhouse this year will break my losing streak. My outdoor vines are nowhere near flowering, they were started in the greenhouse at the same time and were planted out in early May, but have hardly grown since then.
Yes, no heat source; but I do use early varieties. I tried Hami melons once, but they didn’t work, even with an indoor start.
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All this talk about heating and greenhouses to extend the season is so foreign to me considering I live less than 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. 
A few shots of my small variety melons
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My battle with cutworms on watermelons is unusually late this year. Last week they were taking out whole lateral vines. Now they are after new tips that haven’t been sprayed with Carbaryl 4L. I thought the granular application of bifenthrin and zeta-cypermethrin that the rain washed in was going to kill them all last week. I seem now to have the climbing cutworm as they are after the vine running up my fence cutting leaves and terminals. I need to spray the weeds around the garden as the moth flight is heavy now.
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