I think that’s about right But it was very cold and rainy unusually long into the season. We’re in a small heatwave now and I hope the last… For me, not for the watermelons, they’re only small.
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Temperature might not always be the best indication of growing conditions. In some places 20C might be quite cool because it means that it usually rains and is cloudy. Not that it’s too cool for melons and watermelons, but they also need light to grow. Correlation does not always imply causation.
That cool period in the middle of june killed over 90% of my plants. Days aren’t cool per se, but that early in the season clear nights can get cold. Cut line is temperature in the ground level, others are normal 2m temp low, average and high. No protection on plants, only black plastic to collect heat from the sun.
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First melon was starting to change colour so I harvested it before it spoils. Not sure how alive the plant is and therefore it’s susceptible to cracking open or spoiling in other ways. It might be that the plant has not done much in the last few weeks after it started loosing leaves. There are signs of forced ripening. Not sure if the green side is from that as it’s still sweet and crosses between green fleshed and orange fleshed have tended to show that way. Green part is still sweet, but it’s quite dry. Fruit still works well for drying. The most important thing is that seeds look like they are for the most part full and there are lot’s of them. Also a positive trait that seeds were easy to clean straight from the fruit instead of fermenting. Not that it matters that much at this point, but in the long term it’s definetely something I’ll select for.
None of the melon plants are looking good and weeds have taken over a bit as I haven’t bothered to battle with them. Few more plants with almost ripe fruits. Besides those, it’s fruits that are still very immature and very unsure if they will make any seeds. Most likely will have many cucumber like. Some seem to be growing even with minimal foliage. With the weather looking good for the next few weeks, there is still a change that some will make seeds.
Watermelons for the most part look a lot better. There are some that are a bit wilted as tends to happen this time of the year. One moons and start type spoiled immature, but same plant has another a little bigger also. There are now sevral small to medium sized fruits that have a month or very close to it from flowering putting them quite save to making seeds. There are also many that started about 2 weeks ago and are quite unlikely to make even viable seeds, but as there is nothing else they can try. Weather is quite good for that, but they tend to die late august/early september even in the best possible weather.
Only now noticed that the first fruit to start growing, on the right, has started to loose stripes and get a darker colour. It’s getting closer to ripeness. Also the light coloured in the upper picture isn’t as light as it was. Slowly, but surely they are ripening.
One of the later to start from the bigger fruits. This one was one the ones I pollinated in the last days of july and out of probably dozen or so first flowers plants made, this one was the only one which started to grow and has grown well. Earlier there was at least one plant that made fruit to the first flower. It’s quite an importent trait here.
Moons and stars type is starting to wilt. I suspect it has some root damage from the early season because the fruits aren’t getting as big as they could, but if they just hang on, those would be a nice addition to diversity.
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Some of the harvest that I made now already in late august or early september. Just too busy all the time to bother updating. The harvest wasn’t all that big either, but getting still plenty enough seeds for next year. Maybe not to share this year, but maybe next year the results will be little more uniform.
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Lovely! That’s a wonderful harvest
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It’s a good harvest of seeds, but fairly little compared to the area of over 50m2. But you can’t make an omelet without breaking the eggs. Last year I had cloth on until late june and got 80kg of watermelons and 50kg of melons from the same area. This year I didn’t use it at all and maybe got over 20kg of watermelons and less than that of melons. Hopefully next year they are a little more adapted and results are more uniform.