Watermelons are a little behind here, but they’re alive and doing better than I thought they would when the season started. Harvested the first of the season today, a little Kaho. Weighed a bit over 5 lbs. Was dead ripe and had excellent texture, but not quite as sweet as I like. Still, not bad at all and a lot better than no melon. Rind is very thin. Rather seedy, but the seeds are actually quite soft and not at all unpleasant. They were easy to eat along with the melon.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be harvesting any Zatta or Kajari melons. This has been an especially bad year for squash bugs and cucumber beetles----and, thanks to the latter, bacterial wilt has pretty much wiped out my C. melo patch. The dratted things got established during an early season rainy spell and I’ve just not been able to achieve satisfactory control with neem + karanja oil and spinosad + Beauveria bassiana.
Cucumbers have been hit badly with the wilt this year, too—and I rarely have problems with it. Wouldn’t have had any cukes at all if I hadn’t been growing the hybrid bush variety Alekseich. It is susceptible to bacterial wilt, but because it goes into production so fast, the plants have been able to produce some before succumbing. Every other cultivar collapsed before producing much.