Melitopolski Watermelon

I tried growing watermelons on my poor, heavy soil for several years without success. This year I hit the jackpot--3 growing well. Cream of Saskatchewan and White Sugar Lump are growing quite well but the champ is the Melitopolski above. The main stem is 12 feet long and there are 4 side shoots 3-4 feet long. All 3 are just beginning to set fruit so it will be a while for the taste test.

August 30

Bunch onions from the grocery store. (aka Green onions, Scallions, and Welsh onions.)

Until now I've had no luck growing onions, leeks, and garlic on my poor, heavy soil. I got a couple of bags of bunch onions and used the top 2/3 for tuna fish salad. I planted the bulbs in my garden. Those beauties survived all the troubles of this year's garden and grew carefree.

These are perennial so I think I'll add a few more to my onion patch. The picture shows another package ready to plant and my all purpose planting tool, a long handle mattock. Also in the picture: some Anasazi beans with the onions and raspberries behind the onions.

Garden Destruction.

Newly harvested Zucchetta amid destroyed corn patch.

My big, beautiful Yamaha Zuma scooter was totaled by a jerk more interested in talking on a cell phone than watching traffic. It took over 2 weeks to get a settlement and buy a little scooter to take me to and from my woodland garden.

The deer took advantage of my electric fence being discharged to browse the garden and to eat my biggest Naranjilla to a stub. The raccoons took advantage of my long absence to completely destroy 3 patches of Cherokee popcorn that were almost ready.

There are still a few things growing and the Zuccetta (Italian Trombone) squash pictured above is this year's big winner for me. Young, it's better than zucchini mature like above it's a good winter squash, tho' in MHO not as good as Delicata or Butternut.

July 29

Naranjilla setting fruit.

No rain for 2 weeks and the deer have been wading in my kiddie pool/water storage and put a hole in it. I'm getting very low on water but I'll hike in with water to keep this beauty (and 2 others) alive.

The deer zapper fence around the garden continues to work. Alas, the beans that I saved may die from lack of water.

My Triumph strawberry plant has begun producing several ripe, delicious berries a week. Hope it throws off some runners later so I can propagate it. The Litchee Tomatoes are fruiting well and have a nice taste like a cross between a cherry and a tomato. Like the Naranjilla it seems unbothered by pests and disease. Both are keepers and I'll have seeds from both to trade.

July 21

Volunteers

I love volunteers. Lots of volunteers this year, chichiquelite, ground cherry, basil, New Zealand spinach, the best though, is the sorghum growing in the bottom left of the picture. The sorghum I planted just didn't do much; the sorghum growing from under the bird feeder is doing great. Also in the picture: On the right, Sweat Dumpling Delicata from a squash I bought at WalMart; Cherokee Popcorn grown from last years seeds, and a Zucchetta Rampicante (Tromboncino) squash headed for the woods.

I got the electric fence up and it's working (so far). No deer damage on this visit and many plants like beans and okra look to recover.

Ate a ripe, sun-warmed, Triumph strawberry--Wonderful!

Ate the first ripe Litchi Tomato (Baker Creek)--tasty, but not, IMHO, as delicious as Ground Cherries.

July 6

Cherokee Popcorn, One of the few not to be severely damaged by the deer.

The deer broke thru, went over, or went around my mono filament deer restraint. Major damage, especially beans, strawberries, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and ground cherries.

So much for deer protection on the cheap and easy. I'll be putting chicken wire over and around some valuable plants. But most importantly, I'm off to buy an electric fence

One of my 3 Naranjilla plants about to flower.

Over the last week I've had to reinforce my mono filament 'fence' at one point where they broke in. Very little damage thanks to multiple layers of line.

A wise, old hillbilly farmer solved the mystery of my slow growing plants this year and the reason my peas failed and my peanuts are about to fail--wet feet. I have heavy, poorly drained soil and this years heavy downpours in April and May drowned my plants. It's nice to see some plants do well with wet feet and some that thrive-- Cherokee Popcorn. I love my Cherokee Popcorn; this year's crop is from saved seeds; thank goodness as Baker Creek no longer offers it. I stopped growing corn a few years ago as it takes both space and time. I sure am glad I tried Cherokee popcorn last year. It set a nice crop in a small space and grew with minimal attention.

I have yet to see a Honeybee but I saw my first Bumblebee.

I've put out the following plants:

Tomatoes: Chocolate Cherry,Cherry Lollipop, Yellow Gooseberry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, and Yellow Peach.

Peppers: Feher Ozam Paprika, Hot Banana.

Amaranth: Hopi Red Dye, Vietnamese Red, and Mayo de Montana.

I also put out the following seeds.

Watermelons: Petit Yellow, Thai Rom Doa, Melitpolski, Chatchai, Gold Baby, Takii Gem, Golden Midget.

Muskmelons: Banana, Minnesota Midget.

Grain: Popping Sorghum, Boom Corn.

Squash: Sweet Dumpling.

Peanuts: Carwile's.

Sweet Potato: several slips from a grocery store sweet tater.

Beans: King of the Garden Lima, Yard long bean, Mississippi Silver Cowpeas.

June 14

Problems!

I thought for a while that slow growth this year was because of a cool spring but with hot weather here and still slow growth I had one of those Duh! moments. I more than doubled the size of my garden but kept to the same amount of Golden fertilizer (1 part urine:15 parts rain water).
I've tripled the application rate and the plants are starting to grow more normally.

Then there are the giant rodents, errr I mean deer. I ringed my garden with 20# test mono filament line at 2 ' high in March. It worked until a few days ago when they broke thru and did some major damage. I put up a double ring of 50# test and hope that cures my deer problem.

I tasted a berry from my adopted wild dewberry--delicious! A keeper. I'm also getting a lot of blueberries from the low bush BB plants I left in my garden. The Juneberries (Saskatoon, Service berry) growing on the edge of the garden are also quite tasty.

Over the last week I've put out:

Plants: Bunch onions from the grocery store, 3 amaranths, Toothache Plant, Cayenne pepper, ground cheries, nasturtiums, Hot Banana pepper, tithonia. Kellogg's Breakfast tomato, and 4 sweet potato slips.

Seeds: black eye peas, King of the Garden lima, Pink Eye purple hulls, yard long beans, Red Ripper peas, Anasazi beans, black beans (from grocery store), Texas Hill Country Okra, and Blacktail Mt., Golden Midget, White Sugar Lump, Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons.

May 27

I used round newspaper pots to start 13 varieties of watermelon, 4 varieties of muskmelon, and 4 varieties of squash on May 11. I planted them out by hammering a steel tube in the ground, pulling out the plug of soil, and just dropping the plants in the hole.

One of the dewberries that sprang up in my garden was very productive. I adopted it and gave it a little pea fence to grow on. Dewberries are much friendlier than blackberries in the garden and the berries are almost impossible to find in the wild (critters).

I saw a downy woodpecker feeding a young one from my finch feeder. Fun to watch; wish I had a telephoto lens.