Finally got melons and watermelons in the ground. Weather still isn’t really optimum for them, but there doesn’t seem to be any better in the forecast for the next 2 weeks. It should be good weather to test their tolerance. It doesn’t look too cool that they wouldn’t germinatate even if it takes longer than normal. We just had a few warmer days with highs of 20C/68F and ground did feel like it had some heat under biofilm. Next days it will get back to cloudier 15C/59F before getting back closer to 20C/68F. With cloudiness the night don’t look as cold as they could be this time of the year with this kind of highs. Still on clear days it’s likely to get under 5C/41F at ground level.
I changed my set up a little this year. I cut the holes perpendicular to the bed to have seedling more spread out and possibly also get more per m2. Last year I had the problem that some lines failed more. When I had a strech sowed from certain seeds it created areas where I didn’t have anything or just weak plants and other part I might have to cull fairly decent plants. So this year I have sowed them in sort of a checkered pattern. For example in watermelons I sowed every third hole with seeds from the last years best plant, every third with mix of seeds from rest of last years producing plants and rest a mix from years past and some more specific that I marked just to see if they make it. From the best plants I didn’t have as many seeds to spare so I sowed them a bit more sparingly (still probably many extras if they do anywhere near as well as last year) and more from the ones I had extras of. If the weather isn’t absolutely horrible, I should have them this year more evenly spaced out and even be able to make late cullings of plants that are too slow to produce. We’ll see. I have quite high hopes concidering how well some of the plants fared last year.
Under cloth I sowed about 5m of kiwanos from @ThomasPicard and some of his watermelons and melons I got last year to give them a little better change. Kiwanos I don’t have high hopes for, but it’s always nice to test something new that shouldn’t grow that well here.
@ThomasPicard’s watermelons, melons and kiwanos had emerged over the weekend within day or two. This got me look melons outside the cloth. At first I didn’t see anything, but then I saw couple that were just breaking the surface. A day later they had emerged and there were more visible. Now two days later there are a few here and there. Also saw the first watermelons to emerge. Now I’m thinking of marking those that were the very first to emerge out of interest how they compare to those that come later. I’ll also start soon culling anything that emerges late once there are sufficiently spares in all or most holes. Now they have to survive a couple of rainy days with highs under 15C/59F before it should warm up the first time this year well over 20C/68F, although unsure if it will quite get to 25C/76F or if it will continue. I’m happy if there is at least a little more heat than there has been so far.
It’s not really a summer to grow melons and watermelons without protection. Growth has been slow with daily average of around 14C/57F for june and past weeks 70mm of rain was the last straw. There has been enough selection and before I loose them all I decided to cover them with cloth. I also covered ground with black paper mulch to max heating effect and keep weeds in check. They are so much behind that they would need a little help most years to even have good change to make viable seeds. Could/should have covered them earlier as there wasn’t too many that had emerged in the first place, but let’s take this as a learning experience. Interestingly after last small hot period they still developed with averages howering between 12-15C/54-59F. Watermelons quite marginally, but melons have developed first true leaves to that point in a week of cool weather. So wouldn’t need that much more heat. Since covering them a couple days ago many have died, but there are still some that feel firm to touch, and if I’m not mistaken, have developed some more. There is not really hot weather in the forecast. Quite the opposite, it looks like july starts quite a bit cooler than average. That is still better than what we have had over the past week. With a little sun they should feel very comfy covered. Gotta wait week or 2 to see if there is some permanent damage that slows down the growth or if they recover immediately.
Those grown under cloth are looking good and just in time to make ripe fruits. Yet to make final selection although it’s getting clear which are the best. Just waiting for the weather settle a bit to see if there are any casualties.
Kiwanos are growing quite similar space as others. I don’t know if it will cut it, but at least I’ll have better idea of their viability after this kinda year.
It seems like my saving efforts didn’t go completely to waste, although they are well behind ideal and most of the beds are completely empty. From watermelons only one plat seems like it was unaffected and grew in two weeks from barely visible first true leaf to that size in the first picture. Weather during the period wasn’t ideal with fairly cool and rainy days. It has even almost caught up to those watermelons that were under cloth from the start, many of which have visibly suffered from rains and effectively eliminated themselves. Only 2 more watermelons that went through the treatment are clearly growing, one of them next to the best plant. Rest either died or are hopelessly behind and aren’t growing enough.
Melons have about dozen plants that are about the same size as the best plant in second picture. Timewise they should have well enough time to ripen seeds and, with some luck, to ripen fully. However, melons tend to run into late season problems with diseases that deleaf plants and I’m not really hoping anything more than getting viable seeds. Also the melons that were under cloth from the start had suffered from the conditions, save one that has overtaken the others by a mile. Still no flowers, but not going to be much of the ideal pace.
Kiwanos also continued to grow. Still no idea if they have enough time to make fruits, but at least from what I remember growing them years ago, the biggest isn’t that far away from flowering. It has grown fairly well and now with the first extented heatwave of the summer growth should explode at some point.
Melons under cloth. it was fairly shocking seeing how much bigger that one plant was than the others after opening cloth after a long while. Not that it has grown more than could be expected in the timeframe, but considering that it started about the same size as the others.
First female flower (2 actually in the same plant) are open, but not in the best plant. Or that seems like it had some that were faulty and have to wait and see if it will make good flowers. Also hard schooled melons have grown well and there should be some female flowers in the next week. In the mean time I used couple of the first male flowers to try and pollinate those two females. Wheather is cooling down a bit, but so far no signs of any seasonally unusually cool weather, but still quite good temps considering location.
Melons and watermelons have really taken off with the heat. There are some baby melons and watermelons have flowered also, but no certain signs of fruits actually growing.
Biggest and first to flower of the melons that went through hard schooling. Size might be due to the fact that it doesn’t have competition. First few fruits are growing already.
I do hand pollinate them (at least the first ones) to make sure I can favour the plants I like. They just don’t set always for whatever reason. Watermelons are quite poor at setting on the first female here.
First male flower open in kiwanos and females are getting close, but it’s too late. Weather is already turning cool. Based on this experiment it doesn’t look like cool is that big of a problem once the ground warms up. They got behind at the start and it seem like this style it’s more like 50/50 chance to get seeds. They just grow too much before they start to flower. With early flowering like in melons or cucumbers they don’t seem that much more difficult than melons. Possibly even easier, it’s hard to compare as they are so different in their producing style. I do wonder if early flowering trait exist in kiwanos as well? I’m considering if I should sow them with sweet potatoes under plastic tunnel. That way getting seeds seems fairly likely, but what I’m wondering is if it’s requisite of breeding them for my climate to have early flowering trait. I don’t see just cold tolerance getting there and it’s not a crop that I would want to use plastic tunnel to have a chance to get some yield.
Some pictures from early this month to few days ago. Some melons ripened, but only one on the bush without apparent damage to the fruit. Have been collecting fruits to ripen indoors as the plants have deteriorated. Best of the hard schooled melons ripened first fruit just a few days after they were brought indoors. Maybe should not have been a surprise as it was at 45 day mark from flower that is normal here. I was expecting that cold period late august would slow down, but maybe it didn’t. Or it also stressed the plants to ripen faster, although this isn’t evident in the fruits from other plants. It was fairly good tasting, but there was maybe little affect in the sweetness and how close to the rind it went. Still good concidering this year and lot’s of seeds. Interesting thing is that it looked the same as most productive plant last year, but instead of white grainy flesh it was light green and sweeter than last year. Other fruits also look to at least part of the seeds viable. I’m keeping seeds from some of the best of Thomas’ melons separate as well as best from hard schooled. Rest I’ll have as a mix, which might have 20-50% viable. Enough to oversow and get plenty extras, hopefully. Otherwise I believe viability might be better.
Overall results are fairly good considering how it looked. It does make me think how far my goals are, but at the same time I can’t say how common this kinda year is. Next year I plan to play it save just a little bit, if it’s necessary. Risk of not getting any seeds does seem fairly low, but it’s really hard to predict what kinda variations are possible and thus it’s easier to play it save early in the season than late in the season.
I couldn’t let watermelons fail completely. One of them grew so beautifully when it got warmer, but it didn’t form fruits from first flowers and the flowers (around 7-8.8) it started to grow to fruit were just too late, even with little luck, so I decided to help it. Mid august, when fruits were small and cold weather was forecast, I covered it with clear plastic and cloth for remainder of the season. At the same time I noticed one more plant that had small fruits from 10.8 flowering. It was a little lucky because I was able to extent the cover for it as well. Then I just waited. Fruits grew fast early on, but at the turn of the month plants started to feel the cold despite protection. It must have warmed just enough in time to keep them alive for few more weeks, even if they didn’t look pretty. At the time of harvest in 22.9 plants had just given up. Both plants had 2 fruits, but only 1 developed to maturity. First to flower had 45 days to ripen, which is standard here, but those days weren’t equal to summer days. Still fruit was just about ripe, and based on seed, only would have needed a little more. The other was less ripe, but seems like it also has a lot of viable seeds.
Interesting thing about the first fruit was that it seemed like it had at least 2 distinct phenotypes of seeds. It was more apparent because not all seeds had changed colour and there seemed like pattern of seeds ripening from white to black with no other full colour in between and other had fully brown that was ripe or ripened to dark brown (picture isn’t as clear, but the top right seed is more brown). Last year I also had the best plant have two fruits that had different coloured seeds as ripe, but in that case all seeds in the fruit seemed same colour. I wonder how common is it to have different colours in same fruit? Based on the amount of cross pollination, there must be some sort of dominance with some colours that doesn’t allow similar variance as with corn, but still it seems possible. Not that it is that usefull per se. They crosspollinate so freely that it’s reasonable to assume that many seeds are crosses in any case.
