The things have slowed down, the soil is resting and producing greens so I found some time to finally post the results of my cucurbit experiment in summer 2024.
After many failures with vegetable growing in my climate of late/early freezes and hot, windy summer with scorching sun I discovered in 2023 that watermelons and melons really like my conditions.
I decided to dedicate a new plot that I cleaned from 80 eucalyptus
trees, dug all
roots out, graded and amended with manure and
compost. The soil is sandy loam with substantial amount of clay at 50 cm depth at some spots.
PLANTING:
I chose 27 cultivars of melons, 22 watermelons and 6 cucumbers:
For watermelons I was trying to avoid varieties that produce fruits larger than 5 kg (10 lb). In case a smaller one is damaged by a bird/rodent or splits 0 the loss will be more acceptable.
I marked 5 rows spaced 1.5 meters and dug a 10 cm deep trench.
In the trench I planted cucumbers every 50 cm in the row, melons and watermelons every 100 cm.
I was planting 2 seeds per spot and for later plantings I was putting 3-4 seeds.
MAINTENANCE:
I set up
irrigation (main line
underground and risers) but did not connect the hoses and decided to water manually to have better control of water input.
I was watering daily or every other day using no more than 1.5 l per plant.
OBSERVATIONS:
Pickling cucumbers got hit when we got heat wave that lasted 2 weeks and every day I was recording 40-42 C. More volume of water and mulching did not help - they just could not stand hot air blasted by the wind. They were also very quickly turning bitter and yellow. Armenians were not affected.
Cucomelo produced only one fruit.
Most of these heirloom melon cultivars produce small fruits - not bigger than 10 cm.
A lot of melons that looks differently on the outside are just cantaloupes and taste the same.
For melons I would divide them into three categories:
cantaloupes
green meat
white meat
I find green most fragrant and interesting and cantaloupes boring. Boule d'Or was my favorite - the green type. Kiku is also very interesting.
Horned melons were growing well, produced a few flowers but had no fruits. I have noticed that once the night temperatures dropped to 15 C, the plant started wilting. I suspect it likes high humidity, constant 35 C weather.
Watermelons started to split when the temperatures reached 40 C. The most prone to cracking were:
Orangeglo and then Siberian. I picked them cracked and not ripe. When it happened I stopped watering the first section, that I planted in April to make them ripe and sweet.
One Dessert King and one Sweet Princess also cracked but they were already in finishing stage with dried tendrils and they tasted excellent.
There are two theories regarding watermelon splitting: too much water, too little water. It's difficult to find out which one applies for my conditions.
Some watermelons did not produce fruit or they started producing late in July:
Astrahanskyi
Krasny
Yellow Meat
Art Combe
Some watermelons are rather small: Cekiredigi, Citron, Yamato, Siberian. My favorite size is 3 kg- perfect for a family of 3.
In general the flavors of watermelons are very close. reds are the richest, I find oranges refreshingly acidic and Silver Yamato is different than the rest.
On average one planting spot produced 2.2 watermelons for April planting. More fruits set later but the later plants did not have
enough heat to make them perfectly ripe
THE LIST:
Melons:
Golden Beauty Casaba
Sakata (did not germinate)
Noir des Carmes (boring cantaloupe)
Delice
de Table (boring cantaloupe)
Rocky Ford Green (did not produce)
Minnesota Midget (boring cantaloupe)
Ethiopian (grows very well, I will have a second crop, up to 20 cm size, white meat, very good, tastes like horchata)
Ogen
Israeli
Branco de Ribatei (promising nutty flavor, the second crop did not taste ripe enough)
Kajari (beautiful looking, with good flavor)
Hami Hami
Iroquis (boring cantaloupe)
Piel de Sapo (tasty, but was not ripe enough)
Kiku Chrysantemum (original crispy flavor, grows fast)
Striped
Apple (6 cm size, eat with skin, excellent flavor)
Hales Best (boring cantaloupe)
Crenshaw (the best from all cantaloupes and the only cantaloupe I'm going to plant)
Canary
Valencia
Amarillo Oro
Banana (boring cantaloupe)
Honeydew (classic honedew is also the top flavor when completely ripe)
Boule d'Or (the best I ever had - flavors are mix of horchata and lime lollipop)
Ananas D'Amerique (boring cantaloupe)
Ashkahabad (dd not produce)
Horned African Melon (never produced a single fruit)
Mango (bland type of melon used for processing, did not germinate)
Watermelons:
Sugar Baby
Orangeglo (cracking a lot but simply the best from all orange meat types watermelons)
Krasnyi (did not want to produce)
Yamato (original refreshing flavor, white meat)
Sweet Siberian (grows and ripens fast, difficult to find out when it's perfect, may be easily over ripe)
Moon and Stars (one of the best yellows, the red meat version planted in june did not get ripe)
Dessert King (one of the best yellows)
Astrahanskyi (did not want to produce)
Citron (I used it to pickle with cucumbers, but the skin remained hard, I consider it useless, grows very well)
Small Shining (prone to cracking)
Crimson Sweet (one of the best reds)
Golden Midget (never germinated)
Sugar Ogonek (one of the best reds, classic and crystal crispy, very sweet)
Cekirdegi (orange, not sweet enough, weak producer)
Sweet Princess (one of the best reds)
Janosik (for cool climates, over ripening too fast under my intense hot sun, so it never tasted good)
Alibaba (red, nothing special)
Royal Golden (was never bigger than 10 cm, mediocre)
Beni Kodema (too sensitive for intense sun and heat, like Janosik)
Kaho (too sensitive like Janosik)
Art Combe
Yellow Meat (produced late, nothing special)
Cucumbers:
Rhinish Pickle (grows very well, quickly getting bitter, can not withstand high temperatures)
Homemade Pickle (grows very well, quickly getting bitter, can not withstand high temperatures)
Dark Armenian (grows well, not bothered by sun)
Armenian (grows well, not bothered by sun)
Cucomelo (produced only one fruit, probably needs more tropical weather)
If using irrigation I would plant one cultivar planted at the same time per row. This way I could stop the water to make them ripe and restart the water after harvest for possible second crop.
FINAL CHOICES:
I collected seeds form my favorites to plant the next year:
Watermelons:
Yellows:
Orangeglo - because it's the best tasting yellow even at the cost of high splitting rate
Moon and stars- the next on the list of best tasting yellows
Dessert King -seems to grow very well, but only the first crop was good, was resistant to heat
Siberian - it was never sweet enough, but was very productive, setting fruits early and I harvested it three times
Reds:
Sugar Ogonek is simply the best red watermelon I ever had
Crimson Sweet is the second
on par with Sweet Princess
Melons:
Boule d'Or - the best green - lime lollipop
Honeydew - very close second place
Ethiopian/Ethiopka - excellent white meat, very noble, productive
Striped
Apple - refreshing, can be eaten with skin, productive, ripens fast, because it's small
Kiku Chrysantemum - same advantages like Apple, but different flavor
Crenshaw - the best cantaloupe and more sophisticated than all other cantaloupes
Last but not least - Casaba was an absolute hit, with totally different flavor of a green melon mixed with cucumber, sweet and sour, refreshing
Cucumbers:
Perssians - they were not affected by heat, did not get bitter and were excellent when I pickled them - small or big.
I will add images in following posts.
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