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#1
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growing water melons
I have tried to grow these before and not had alot of luck. I grow
maybe 4 hills and get one ripe mellon. I get several others but they are no good. (I dont know if i am picking them wrong or what.) They seem to be orange inside. What if I pick all of the meelons off as they are growing with the exception of the first one? It always seems as if the first one is always the one taht turns out ok. |
#2
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dps wrote:
Water melons are harder to grow in northern short season areas than in the south. However, it can be done. I assume you're in the north. In the north it's necessary to start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier. ....."start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier"......? -- Travis in Shoreline (just North of Seattle) Washington USDA Zone 8b Sunset Zone 5 |
#3
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In article 0HPMd.6918$uc.5156@trnddc09,
Travis wrote: dps wrote: Water melons are harder to grow in northern short season areas than in the south. However, it can be done. I assume you're in the north. In the north it's necessary to start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier. ...."start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier"......? Yeah. Try doing it in the UK. Ordinary melons are borderline in WARMER parts :-( Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#4
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I live in southern Kentucky. It doe sge thot here.
Maybe I am doing something wrong? I have also used black plastic. |
#5
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What I'm trying to say is that you should push the envelope, or the
season. For example I do 3 plantings of tomatoes. If the first planting doesn't freeze, I plant earlier next year. If the second planting freezes I plant later next year. The third planting generally doesn't freeze until just before harvest. I probably should revise it to say "...earlier than you think is possible..." Travis wrote: ...."start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier"......? |
#6
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There are parts of the UK where melons could be grown, but I suspect
that the moderate temperatures make the season longer than the numbers printed on the seed packet would indicate. Try the clear plastic route to heat them up. Remember that the plastic has to have enough holes so that bees or other pollinators can get in there. DISCLAIMER: I have never tried to grow anything in the UK. The above comments are purely guesswork based on New England (USA) experience. Nick Maclaren wrote: In article 0HPMd.6918$uc.5156@trnddc09, Travis wrote: dps wrote: Water melons are harder to grow in northern short season areas than in the south. However, it can be done. I assume you're in the north. In the north it's necessary to start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier. ...."start the melons as early as possible, or even earlier"......? Yeah. Try doing it in the UK. Ordinary melons are borderline in WARMER parts :-( Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#7
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In article ,
dps wrote: There are parts of the UK where melons could be grown, but I suspect that the moderate temperatures make the season longer than the numbers printed on the seed packet would indicate. Try the clear plastic route to heat them up. Remember that the plastic has to have enough holes so that bees or other pollinators can get in there. Thanks, but I am afraid that is a common myth. Damn the low temperatures, it is the low light levels and low high temperatures that is the problem. For example, my garden has a growing season of typically 300+ days for extreme northern plants, but perhaps 30 days for heat and sun lovers - yes, really, there may be only 30 hot and sunny days in the 90 days of summer. Autumn and spring are much darker and winter is gloomy beyond most USA inhabitants' belief. And I live in the south of England :-( DISCLAIMER: I have never tried to grow anything in the UK. The above comments are purely guesswork based on New England (USA) experience. New England is halfway to the Deep South from here - look at an atlas! The summer heat and light levels correspond to the extreme north west of the contiguous USA and the coastal strip of Alaska, which is why many USA gardeners in those areas look at uk.rec.gardening. Regards, Nick Maclaren. |
#8
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#9
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#10
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Yes you need full sun, and plenty of space. Most folk who have watermelon
problems have them too crowded. Ther are few insects that bother watermelons once they get established. The striped cucumber beetle will take down.emerging plants. Squash vine borers do not bother them. There are a few foliar diseases that you might encounter. They do need sandy type soil and are difficult to ripen on clay base soil. To much nitrogen or water can be detrimental to ripening. But I will bet you are crowding them. Those hills should be a minimum of 10 feet apart for regular melons and 6-8 ft for icebox melons. Your lastline intrigues me. The only melons I have ever seen that were orange inside were orange flesh melons. Red fleshed melons tend to white streaks or pink white flesh when they fail to ripen. |
#11
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FarmerDill wrote:
Yes you need full sun, and plenty of space. Most folk who have watermelon problems have them too crowded. Ther are few insects that bother watermelons once they get established. The striped cucumber beetle will take down.emerging plants. Squash vine borers do not bother them. There are a few foliar diseases that you might encounter. They do need sandy type soil and are difficult to ripen on clay base soil. To much nitrogen or water can be detrimental to ripening. But I will bet you are crowding them. Those hills should be a minimum of 10 feet apart for regular melons and 6-8 ft for icebox melons. Your lastline intrigues me. The only melons I have ever seen that were orange inside were orange flesh melons. Red fleshed melons tend to white streaks or pink white flesh when they fail to ripen. I grew watermelons in NE Indiana last summer. I got them in the ground as soon as I could and kept them warm with plastic as long as I could in fall. Mine were definately too closely spaced. I also began growing them at one end of the garden. Don't do that... The water melon vines out from the main plant in at least 4 directions. They like lots of sun and lots of water, so plant them where they can get it. Determining if watermelons are ripe is a bit of a trick... You can find about 10 methods to use on the Internet... (Trust me, I looked ;0)) Puckdropper -- www.uncreativelabs.net Old computers are getting to be a lost art. Here at Uncreative Labs, we still enjoy using the old computers. Sometimes we want to see how far a particular system can go, other times we use a stock system to remind ourselves of what we once had. To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm |
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