Share GTS seed growing information from your garden and photos too.
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I had just planted last week, some out in native soil where the water hose drips, and a plug tray, 72 cell in the greenhouse.
Watermelons up and doing well. I still direct seeded this week as well, weather is good and curious to see what does well.
Plug tray of seedlings to get transplanted over this next week. Its last weeks photo ill have to remember an update tomorrow.
Lots of diversity, over 15 varieties, or more plus what I grew out in the past 6 years. I forgot to request the GTS seed packet but there us still loads if diversity within the tray. I have no idea what will make it to produce fruit.
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I sowed the watermelon seed, what I got from GTS and some I had harvested from my own watermelons a few years ago (and a different house) on March 27. I’m seeing sprouts today, Ap 4! We’ve gotten some rain and then more rain and everything is taking off.
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Nice! Did you have different colors of melon to plant? Im thinking the GTS mix has the melon flesh colors of red, orange and yellow. What color do you get? From what you previously planted?
the seeds I had were for a watermelon with a yellow flesh. I think the watermelon seeds from GTS are all different colors too. I’ll be sure to report what I get!
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Yes, please do. Trying to determine if one flesh color or another correlated to reduced pest pressure or not. Or if it correlates to anything for that matter. Some say yellow flesh is tastier than red.. IDK im just happy to get melons ripening and sweet. There are different shapes too, from round refrigerator types to the oblong picnic type.
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All seedling plugs transplanted as of two weeks ago. I still put more seeds into the ground. About 100 planted in total, hoping for some good crosses.
All in different areas of the garden, and in different soils, no amendments other than composted wood chips from a couple years ago. Muskmelons with winter squash also planted everywhere and all with bush beans, cowpeas, okra and sorghum..maybe a few sunflowers too.
There are still over 60 plants alive, growing slowly, no triple digit weather yet, unseasonably cool for our growing season. All the melons are still under cages to protect them from the invading chickens. As soon as they fill in and start vining, the wire protection will come off and they will have to make it on their own.
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I have some watermelons peaking up and still getting more planted. I have the Gts mix and a kind of ridiculous number of others.
I noticed there are some seeds in the Gts mix that seem to have the Egusi (thin skinned) seed type. Does anyone know if these are sweet/non bitter melons?
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Could you share a photo of the seeds in question? I can look to see if anything matches what I’ve grown before. I still grow from a mix I have in a mason jar. I’ll give it a try on identification…
Let me check…
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I grew these, and they grow well. Yellow skin, tasty flesh and really sweet.
And I purchased these varieties and mixed in a mason jar. Everything is mixed, so I’ve got no way to tell until grown out.
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Lovely! Thank you.
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Hi everyone!!!
We are also doing a watermelon grex. We are located in central Iowa (zone5b).
Although we didn’t have seed saved watermelon seeds, a friend of ours was able to dumpster dive 22 varieties of watermelon from Seed Savers Exchange a couple years back. So, we did a mix of seeds and started 160 cells with 3-5 plants per cell. These are currently hardening and will be ready to plant this weekend, which is when we will direct sow our GTS mix. We are doing four 200ft runs of watermelons with drip line irrigation. We plan to water as needed, no timers.
In addition to our watermelon grow out project, we have dedicated space for GTS muskmelons, summer squash, winter squash, okra, and sweet corn.
We are doing the GTS muskmelon grex mix similar to our watermelon, with several other Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) varieties (also dumpster rescued) and started indoors. Those starts were planted last week and the GTS mix was directed sowed then too. This is two runs of 200ft on drip irrigation.
Our sweet corn plot will utilize another landrace mix of “Allies’ Sweet Corn” along with double red, blue jade, and SSE heirloom sweet corn. This is a 20ft x 200ft plot with drip line irrigation as well. We are also experienced in manual corn pollination and may utilize these skills for the most cross pollination.
As a small scale farm w a focus on regenerative practices and desire to operate as a food-forest system, landrace growing has struck a chord in our soul. We imagine drought tolerant veggies that don’t need to be babied in greenhouses. We imagine complex flavors regional to our community. We imagine a cultural shift in the way we see produce. We are so excited to begin this journey and have the commitment to see it through, knowing that adaptive and nutrient dense food is our future.
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Hi, you make my heart happy 
knowing you’re saving seeds from the dumster and growing them !! So very exciting your patch has grand diversity in the makings.
Thank you Kim!! Your photos are great and I love your creative growing space. Can’t wait to see updates!
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You are most welcome. Im happy to share what my projects are looking like, even if they wither away…it happens more than you know. Im not discouraged, i just keep planting seeds…
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Something has been eating my musk melon and watermelon seedlings. Since the area is fenced in, larger nuisances are not the culprit. Voles? Slugs? Either way, they aren’t interested in mochata/maxima/pepo seedlings. Will be doing a second round of sowing in June.
Maarten
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