trellis

[tall corn]

Well, doesn't that just beat all? I cut the latest open and it looks about 2-3 weeks from being ready. Durnit!!!!

Does anybody have a sure fire way to tell when a melon is ripe?

Tall.......

[tall corn]

Ok, so, this time I patiently waited through some more heat (+100) for a few days and then it dropped into the mid 90's and the last two weeks we've had rain, rain, rain because of a stalled low pressure mass hovering directly over north central Texas. I've been checking my melons almost daily, and I think what may have been my problem is that I wasn't leaving them alone. I kept turning them over to check for the creamy belly and when I did that, I probably disturbed something. So anyway, I was on my way home last night after reffing a football game and I followed a truck pulling a trailer loaded with long watermelons. So, if a farmer knows it's time, I thought maybe I'd harvest mine and see. I still have two more maturing, but I'll let those get a little heavier, first. You can see in the pictures I also have a second round of cherry tomatoes and finally my jalapenos are producing.

I'm gonna throw these in the fridge overnight and I'll cut 'em tomorrow.

More later.....

Tall.........

[tall corn]

Crap! (I hope I can say that.... sorry, Newt) So I cut into them. The oldest, is amost mealy, just on the cusp (pic 1 and 4), but it's very sweet. I'll claim that as a good melon, therefore the first 1 of 3. The second one, although, had a creamy bottom weighed in at almost 10 pounds - extremely heavy for a sugar baby melon. However, after audibly cracking open to the knife, the meat still appeared to need an nother 2 weeks to month to fully mature. So, I'll give that a disappointing /1/ on the three scale. The last one (pic 3) was nowhere ready, even though it looked the ripest of all of them. Sadness. Oh well, I have many more years to learn. 2 more to harvest, fall is setting in and we'll see how the melons respond and how much longer the vines lives.

Peace, y'all!

Tall.......

[NatGreeneVeg]

Does anybody have a sure fire way to tell when a melon is ripe?

Look for the tendril closest to the melon stem. A tendril is curly and looks like a pig's tail. When it turns brown and dries up you can harvest then or wait up to one more week for peak flavor.

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