I'm growing mini watermelons for the first time and I have a few tiny melons that have set on my vines so in the current heat we are getting I should be able to get them to harvest if I can keep up the water to them.
Does anyone know if theyd need anything at this stage of summer other than heat and water to keep them ramping along?
wish i were a melon expert. :)
i'd say you're doing fine if you can keep up with them.
will you have enough time yet to set more fruit and get it to ripen? if so i would lightly feed at the outwards nodes with your favorite liquid fertilizer.
songbird
so do I! It's never been reliably hot aroudn here for logn enough for me to become a melon expert and i love watermelosn and rockmelons (which you'd call canteloups)
the biggest is now aobut the sice of my two cleched fists held together and they are supposed to be 'mini' watermelons so I'm hoping htye will hav enough time to get to harvesting. We should still get a full 2 or even 3 more months with a frost.
I've been keeping the water up and I've given some food but not a lot. I figure little and not too often might be better than too much food.
I'll let you know how they go.
Fran, glad to see you getting chatty again. Excitement isn't all that it's cracked up to be.
I have about as much chance of winning the Lotto as being able to get a watermelon to ripeness given my terroire;O) Consequently, I don't have any firsthand information for you. However I do have the "Vegetable Gardener' Bible" by Edward C. Smith.
(Available at a library near most of us.)
and he suggests moderate and even watering until the melons have reached full size, and then little to no watering while they ripen.
I hope that helps some.
1"- 2" of water a week, and a bit of a boost - compost tea or mild fertilizer every 3 weeks or so.
These are the instructions I have used..this has encouraged melons to the point that the critters have found them irresistible. I never get any. I gave up a few yrs ago after many tries.
Boron
i'm only getting experience by accident. i've not even read up on them.
if you have 2 to 3 more months of frost free weather then you have a longer season than we do (by about a month).
the limitation is leaf area to melon size given all other things being ok. if the plants are big and only have a few fruits then you're good.
we have only grown rockmelons here the past few years, but the melon size is about the same as a mini watermelon so i think the amount of sugars needed for ripeness is also going to be similar enough that the comparison isn't too bad.
we could get melons to finish if we had them up to size before early to mid August. we didn't let new fruits set after that as we wanted sugars to go into the fruits already set. a few plants that didn't have any on to begin with we let set fruits just to see what would happen, but they didn't make it to full size or any edible ripeness.
are you well above sea level? what is your late season normally like?
for us we'd be just about done with any new fruit setting.
i think you have up to two more weeks where you can let plants put on more fruits if they will. after two more weeks i'd pull most plants that don't have fruits already and reuse the space for something else. leave one test plant and let it fruit if it can but only one fruit as i think the weakening light will make it a waste anyways.
sounds ok from here, except i'd make sure that plants putting on new fruits have more water on the nodes that have rooted closest to the new fruits. you want those to get up to full size as quickly as possible.
:) good luck.
songbird
Well that sounds like good advice and even makes sense. I know that things that couldn't be grown in this area 40 years ago, can now be grown so each year it's a case of trying something new. This year the new, is the mini watermelons and physalis. The physalis are looking great - now I just need to figure ut what to do with them when they are ripe and also finding out if they are ripe when the calyxs (sp?) go papery or is it before then?
Aha! That sounds close enough to what I'm doing now.
I might have to put a plastic milk crate over the fruits then as they fet nearer to harvest. I've not had any strawberries for weks and weeks but I have several very fat and huge Blue Tongued Lizards hanging round my strawbs so I know just what you mean about critters:
Now that is excellent thoughts! I was thinking that I might need to stop more fruits starting or even remove some to ensure that what I do have on the plant can get to harvest. Nice to know that I was on a similar wave length.
Thanks bird. This gardneing caper is always about holding one's tongue in the right position - either that or it's just plain dumb luck.
If these are the sort that go by the common name "ground cherry" or "cape gooseberry" then they are ripe when the husks are dry and papery. Shake the plant and the ripest ones will fall right off.
They make a good jam and can also be dried. I was less fond of them fresh.
Thanks for that info Pat. And yes, they are the Cape gooseberry. I've tried them raw at a friends and he also made some into a tart. I too preferred them cooked.
Yes, we had to leave one night because of one of the fires near us and they have had a right rollicking up north today. Some people have now been flooded twice in 2 years.
So it must be getting slightly warmer?
Not really warmer, but sunnier. We finally have had some sun on the ground again (north side of hill) the last few days. Mid-December to mid-January is our coldest time as you might expect (usually 55F/26F). We had a good lick of rain from mid-October (just as the grapes finished being harvested), until Christmas. We are about back to average by now. For the last 3 years, February has been warm here, and almost Summery (if I can say that), then it slides back into winter rains until May.
The last couple of years I haven't been able to garden much, so I am looking forward to doing it right this year. No experiments, just going for maximum production.
Does your government still encourage logging?
I planted some halloween punkins seed from england and some jam melon seeds from tasmania or victoria and for the last month they have produces masses of flowers and not melons,but in the last week or so have started a few melons but what I thought was punkins was mellons or vice versa,maybe, the one I thought was pumpkin is about two inches round and has stripes like a melon the other so far is smaller at the moment but oval with no stripes.
Use granular fertilizer to your plant. Most granular fertilizers are applied at a rate of 11/2 pounds per 100 square feet. Scatter the fertilizer around the plants and water it well. But make sure that the fertilizer does not come in contact with the plant, as this may cause the plant to burn. You can use base nutrients Sensi bloom which will work well. This will help the plant to get the energy they need to produce high quality fruit.
Allen, Farm1 is in NSW Australia. Her weather is the equivalent of our August. She wants her melons to ripen, not to go vegetative, which is what your course of action would lead to. When plants start running out of warmth, and food, they try to set their fruit as quickly as they can. Spring and mid-summer are the times for nitrogen.
:-)) You remembered!
Her weather is the equivalent of our
.......and today I harvested the first one. Not having ever grown them before, I wondered if they were ripe when you knocked on them. The one I harvested knocked beautifully but it wasn't quite ripe. It was tasty and certainly had a good watermelony flavour, but I think another week or so would have been better. Not to worry, my grandkids will scoff it down anyway.
I've also got 2 different types of ripe plums (well prunes really but I've never really known what the difference between the plums and prunes is supposed to be- these are both officially 'prunes'), ripe apples and strawbs and zucchs and the basket I took to my offspring's place full of garden goodies looked gorgeous with a dozen eggs added along with some herbs and a few other things that I now can't bring to mind.
Farm1 wrote: ...
i would like to hear more "how to tell a melon is ripe" descriptions...
since i've not grown them it would come in handy.
for me prunes have always been dried plums.
nice to hear about green, growing and ripe when i'm looking at snow... :) today it is supposed to rain and get warmer again. after
-3F the other night i'm ok with that.
songbird
If I remember correctly, Bill Who Putters, once said if the melon sounds like your head when you tap it, it's not ripe. If it sounds like your stomach when you tap it, it's over ripe, but if it sounds like your chest when you tap it, it IS ripe.
Maybe once Bill Who Putters digs himself out of the snow, he'll respond.
:-)) So would I!
The varieties I have (Robe de Sargent and D'Agen) are both sold here as prunes but since prunes come from plums I guess it is like you say probalby just a case of if they are dried or not. Either way, they are very tasty.
Yes, I can imagine. Those storms in the NE of the US look diabolical. I think after seeing the pics that I'd even prefer stinking heat and bushfires over those sorts of conditions any day.
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