2025 Adele's garden in central Nebraska, USA

[AdelePoe]

I’m hoping that following the progress of my garden here will help keep me on track and be of interest to others. Where I live is on the edge of the Nebraska sandhills, a prairie ecosystem all its own. We have a very high perched water table, so if we get rains in the spring and then keep things mulched, supplemental watering won’t be needed. A heavy mulch is the key to success there. So far this spring we have gotten just over an inch of rain, which isn’t much.

I mulched this little plot last fall with a thick layer of cardboard then a thick layer of hay. It is going to be my watermelon patch. The grass around it is very aggressive, so that is the biggest threat to success right now.

I had heard somewhere that at least four species growing together will grow better than one alone, then on a going to seed podcast a guest said eight species with roots intermingling will grow better. So I’m testing that out here also.

I thought putting the seeds in this fun little plastic container would help, and give me something to do while waiting on the calendar. But it didn’t work so well getting the seeds out, so these containers will find another purpose.

This is the newly planted plot. Nine hills of an assortment of vegies and flowers, with watermelon. Now I wait and hope the chickens don’t take an interest.
The little tree is a black cherry, planted last year. It is apparently mostly suitable for wildlife, we’ll see.

Wild plum and a crab apple are the other near neighbors.

[AdelePoe]

I appreciate all of you who may have looked at the first post, thinking, that’s not going to work out well, and were kind enough to say nothing! In that first planting, no watermelon grew. Other plants sprouting around them may have crowded them out. Or we had a cold dry spring, followed by cold rains, which may have just been too discouraging if the watermelon were sensitive types. I replanted, and the weather finally warned up, so I do have watermelon growing.
Here are some photos of it all.

Some more random photos from around the garden area:

The first fruit to set in the pepo patch, marked with an E for Early. Will save it’s seeds.

After reading a discussion here regarding pepitas, I ordered some seeds. Of course it was way to late to plant them, but I did anyway. If they hurry up and first hard frost holds off, I may get fruit with viable seed this year. I did save most of my seed to be ready for next spring, but I just couldn’t not try this year.

I have a young peach tree with a golden current managing to survive with it. I don’t actually remember dropping a pumpkin next to them, but the evidence is there!

And just some more pictures for the fun of it.
Thanks for sharing my journey so far.

[Lauren (Lauren Ritz)]

It seems a perfectly reasonable arrangement to me, which is why I didn’t say anything. I usually plant watermelon in February or March, and it just comes up when it’s ready. If you feel that other things overwhelmed it, maybe try planting the watermelon first, and then the other stuff after emergence?

[AdelePoe]

I just dumped everything in the same planting hole. Next year I’m going to spread things out more so everything has a better chance. In the original planting holes where I dumped everything, most now have two, some three or four, plants which are thriving.

I like the idea of planting in winter. I did this one year with tomatoes, then gave them a plastic jug for a greenhouse until all frosts were past. I might try this next year also with the squash and melons.

[Lauren (Lauren Ritz)]

Some squash will do it. Watermelons are the only melon I’ve found so far, although fall planting is something I want to move toward for all my projects.

[AdelePoe]

I wish you well with the fall planting, and would like to hear how it goes. Fall in my area is as unpredictable as spring, with freezing temps followed by spring like weather. I’d be afraid things would sprout before winter got real. But January or February, seeds could go in the frozen ground and know when it is really spring. I think.

[Lauren (Lauren Ritz)]

Here as well. Temps in the 30’s, followed by weeks of freeze. Pseudo winter to arctic blast.

Tomatoes do ok. They need that gelatinous covering to rot away before they can sprout, which means relatively warm temperatures. Corn sprouts at the wrong time, without fail. Corn and beans don’t seem to have a real dormancy period, but I hope they can be trained.

Melons tend to rot.

It only takes one success.

[AdelePoe]

I have had beans come up on their own before. I had some pole beans I didn’t care for, so I just left them. They grew a couple years before disappearing. But they may have spent the winter on the vine, then dropped to the ground in the spring.

[AdelePoe]

I guess it’s time for an update. First the watermelon patch.

I am getting fruit, and they are watermelon!

This little yellow melon was the earliest fruit I spotted. It has a nice deep thump, but it’s tendril is completely green and I can tell nothing by its bottom spot. I chose all seeds except one for their small size, because I’m growing for myself, (not the greater good, don’t judge) and I want fruit I can finish in a day and fit in the fridge. So I can’t really tell anything by its size either. Every day I look at it and consider picking it, and decide to wait. If I’m going to be wrong, if it goes too far at least I’ll have seed. Also, the beans have tipped over. Apparently my miscanthus grass poles are not strong.

I love this photo because it captures the fortitude of the survivors! Mostly in each clump of seeds, only one or two plants survived. The borage was definitely dominant.

I scattered a lot of amaranth seeds. Two grew. To be honest, most of the seed was old, so it is on my purchase list for next year.

In the pepo and corn patch, the squash kind of mostly collapsed. There are a few fruit but from a landrace perspective, are these seeds I want? Did the seeds learn that this is what they need to overcome, or that this is what they are supposed to do?

The corn, well, it was a very small patch of corn. These were from a package of purchased corn. They germinated later than the rest but they are larger.

These were from saved seed. This one has so many ears! It’s this a good trait for corn or is there a downside?

Here we are in the grass competition space. I scattered all my maxima and moschata seeds here. So of course I’m growing pepo. Beautiful zucchini and the plant is not collapsing. There are some of the others but I haven’t found any fruit yet.

That pumpkin next to my peach tree is growing delicatas. So, pepo.

The pepitas I planted much too late have put on at least one squash. Hurry, little one!

And I had planted some melon seeds saved from store bought melons last year. I wasn’t finding any fruit, then suddenly there was this!

I will end with this. It isn’t even in my garden but I took the photo and like it so I wanted to share it. Thanks for sharing this journey with me.

[AdelePoe]

I picked the last of my parsnip seeds today, and then sprinkled some around my watermelon patch. I don’t know what I will grow there next year, but whatever it is, I hope it is also parsnips. And I have this lone fennel plant, from which I don’t expect to gather any leaves or seeds, but it is growing a great crop of these.

For several days, I have had about 20 of them. The larger ones have begun crawling away, but there are always tiny new ones. I wish I had such a crop on my milkweed, but unfortunately I’ve seen nothing so far.

[AdelePoe]

While checking my watermelon patch today, I noticed this watermelon had a split. It also had a fairly deep thunk, so I decided it was ripe enough and picked it, mostly because of the split.

However, after cutting it, it is not ripe, and if this is ripe, then it isn’t yummy.

I’m going to assume the white seeds are not ripe, and even if they were, I won’t save these seeds because I don’t want splitting watermelon traits.

Then, as long as I was in the garden picking watermelon, I couldn’t resist picking this one any longer.

It was perfectly ripe. I’m not sure how I feel about the flavor, but will save the seeds. It is the right size, was the earliest one to produce, and isn’t horrible.

I have several more of the light green oval melons growing, so I will see if any of them meet seed saving criteria.

[AdelePoe]

Well, either last night or the night before I had a few leaves touched by frost. Not sure what to make of it, since I thought low temps were only in the 40sF, but there the leaves are. They were open to the north and west, I guess. The watermelon were not bothered, and my tomatoes are well sheltered by a weed barrier.

[AdelePoe]

Well, anyway, this is not a trait I will select for! Somehow I think “ability to tell when ripe” is now on my list of desirable traits. As soon as I figure that out.

[APUCommunityGarden (Beth McCoy)]

I had a watermelon explode this year as well.

[Lauren (Lauren Ritz)]

This often happens because of too much water in the last few weeks. If possible pull water off when watermelons are close.

[AdelePoe]

I have given no supplemental water whatsoever. They have only had rain water, which is a little hard to control. But none in the last week and a half, before that, a couple inches over about 3 days. Which was apparently enough if that was the cause though none of the others seems affected. Anyway, not a trait I want, and it wasn’t yummy, so off to the compost it went.

[AdelePoe]

As I’m thinking about this all….

I grew up in this region, about 50 miles from where I now live. As a girl, I remember my mom occasionally growing watermelon, and they were never really yummy. This is cattle country, and even farming is primarily corn and soybeans for livestock consumption. But there are a few people who raise vegetables for sale at roadside stands and farmers markets, and their watermelon are delicious. I suppose they put more effort into all the right conditions. I’m wondering if I should get some really yummy local watermelon and add those seeds to my mix for next year. If I can find any that aren’t seedless…..

Anyway, selection for flavor is now my top priority.

[APUCommunityGarden (Beth McCoy)]

I grew up in NW Oklahoma, also cattle country (plus wheat - not enough summer rain for corn or soybeans). I’ve also struggled with watermelons, though my cousin consistently grew very good melons with his grandpa and cousins. I’m going to add a couple inches of compost to my patch this winter.

[AdelePoe]

We have finally hard a hard frost, about a full month past the average date. It was interesting, some things seemed to quit growing with the season change, regardless of the lack of frost. My watermelon harvest did not seem to be extended, what was ripe in September was pretty much the end of harvest. I picked all of these mid September. After these I picked maybe two out three more. I grew one that was even smaller than the one I’m holding in my hand. It was not very yummy, had about for bites of watermelon and maybe more seeds that edible flesh. I think it was marketed as a patio or container watermelon. I don’t recommend it, but I will grow it again myself anyway.

In other news, my squash and beans did not

outcompete the grass. The corn didn’t really either, but it did make some seeds, sad as they are.

I feel like I need to rethink my whole corn project. I don’t even know what I have here. It was a good project in that I learned some about what is and is not possible, but I’m wondering if I have room for three separate corn populations,

and what my priorities should really be.

I’m going to stop here, my phone keeps glitching, and I’m beginning to worry that I will be sending gibberish!

[AdelePoe]

I see I didn’t send the photo of the one in my hand.

Not that remarkable, but here it is.