I wanted to start a thread with my garden pictures for this year and progress reports. Mainly for record-keeping purposes, but also for others to enjoy. I am growing the GTS sweet corn mix, which is very lovely. I am also growing Joseph’s original lofthouse - oliverson muskmelon and a Weeks watermelon mix from the serendipity seed swap.
As of today the sweet corn has been watered three times, with zero fertilizer, and almost no weeding. The muskmelons/watermelons have endured the same treatment. I grow without the use of any chemicals or pestsides, low till with wood chip mulch. If I need the soil to warm for some crops I simply rake the chips into the walkways and then re-cover after crop termination.
Oh wow. Looking good. I’m growing the GTS watermelon, moschata squash and sweet corn. Hopefully my sweet corn will be as visually appealing as yours are.
I’m sure they will be. It grows differently than any corn I’ve ever seen. I was pretty worried about not putting any fertilizer down, because that row has been covered with weed fabric for 2 years with nothing growing in it. This corn doesn’t seem to care.
It’s just starting to runner now, it’s probably 2 weeks behind my muskmelons. For some reason the damn voles keep tunneling through that one row and pushing them up, so I have to keep fixing it. Otherwise they’re doing good. Hope I get some, my kids love watermelon and the past 3 years the dang deer/racoons and pretty much everything thing else ends up getting them before me.
Absolutely. Squashes and melons can do it, after all; they’re in the same family, so it seems like it could be theoretically possible.
Do any watermelon varieties exist currently that can ripen off the vine, at least a little bit? Or citrons, which are the wild form of the same species? If there are citrons that can do it, that would be a great reason to cross in some wild genes.
Good luck. We’ve never had much luck with any type of melon or watermelon in our garden. I hope the GTS pack can provide a winner for genetics. Real dry year here and temps at least seem cooler than the last few years here so idk. Still to be determined.
The melons are chugging along. I’ve noticed the ones that germinated themselves through the wood chips are not growing nearly as well as the plants that I transplanted. So far I have 4 muskmelons. The honeybees really love pollinating the melons, which is nice to see. The watermelon is slowly coming along, will start flowering any day now.
They were likely immature, those came up from melons that rotted on the vine due to pickleworm infestation. The ones that look better are from the one melon that actually fully ripened.
Rain has been less frequent, but still often enough that I haven’t needed to supplement with irrigation. All the corn is harvested now so my focus has shifted to the muskmelons and watermelons. Lots of diversity in colors and shapes and sizes in both. One of the muskmelons is quite large and looks to be about a week or so from being ready.
Gosh, you people who get that mythical sky-water in summer.
I’m delighted to hear that they’re all doing well on rainwater alone! That’s great! I’m hoping to use only rainwater this year, too, except in my case, the rainwater has to be stored in tanks and used for irrigation, because we get all our rain in the winter and spring. (Wry grin.) I’d love to get my crops to the point where they don’t even need that, but it may take awhile and a lot of mulching!
Yes we will likely eat it this weekend and I will take some pictures of the inside and some flavor notes. Just noticed this one after getting home from the Farmers market. Looks like it split, but quite small and beautiful.
