That's awesome! What size container did you plant your watermelons and cantaloupe in? This is my first time container gardening (or gardening at all for that matter!) and I'm kind of making it up as I go. My watermelons seem to be growing and flowering but no fruit (the bees don't care about them). My cantaloupe has TONS of flowers (and the bees love it) but only one fruit so far. I also have pumpkins...one just got a bunch of flowers yesterday so we'll see if anything happens there. All the pumpkin flowers are really close to the stem (not out on the vine) and that's where the cantaloupe is too (even though there are lots of flowers out on the vines there). The thing is, in this GA heat, I'm already watering 2-3 times a day and there's not even any thirsty fruit yet. I'm just trying to figure out how to salvage what I can this year and what to do better next year.

Hi, TigerDawn! I'm attaching a previous thread that Dawn did for me and others regarding vegetables that are good for containers in Oklahoma. I have already purchased seed for several of these plus a few I just am going to try that are also recommended for containers. I do not have space or the ability to create space in my small front yard garden, so I have to grow in containers. I have a few pots already, some quite large and others not. I orderd some grow bags in the 7 gal. and 10 gal. size, but plant to order a few larger Sunleaves grow bags from Worm's Way, that are around 20 to 30 gal. size. I will purchase items to create a modified version of Al's 5:1:1 mix (you can find a lot of discussion about it on the Container Gardening Forum). But it consists mainly of 5 parts of pine bark fines, 1 part perlite, and 1 part fine sphagnum peat moss, handful of dolomitic lime, and for fertilizer, I initially throw in a handful of Espoma TomatoTone for tomatos, GardenTone or PlantTone for other vegetables and ornamentals. Al's recommended fertilizer ratio is 3:1:2. I have a liquid organic food (can use either foliar or drench) called Ladybug John's Recipe that I found in a gardening store, that is approx. the same ratio (3:1.5:2). It has trace minerals and other elements in it, and I love it. I have mostly determinate, semi-determinate, and dwarf varieties of tomatos to plant this year as they do better in containers than the indeterminates. I have a few indeterminates that are on my "must have" list, like Black Cherry, Sungold, Indian Stripe, Hawaiian Currant, and Little Lucky. The dwarfs include: New Big Dwarf Polish Dwarf Extreme Dwarf Bush Determinates and Semi-Determinates: Black Sea Man Mountain Princess Sophie's Choice Bush Goliath (hybrid) I am growing a few more, but they were not on the recommended list nor have I seen them mentioned here, so they are for "experimentation". Other container veggies I'm growing include: Okra 'Little Lucy' Beans: Kinghorn Wax (yellow; bush); Romano (flat green; pole) Canteloupe: �Minnesota Midget� (baseball size, compact plant) Carrot: �Little Finger� (short 3-4"); 'Tonda di parigi' (French, 2" round) Cucumber: Spacemaster 80; Diva Malabar Spinach, in place of regular spinach which is harder to grow Swiss Chard: Northern Lights Pepper (hot): �Early Jalapeno�; "Santa Fe Grande�; �Numex Big Jim�; �Numex Joe E. Parker� Watermelon: 'Yellow Doll' Pumpkin: 'Windsor' Eggplant: 'Twinkle' Squash: 'Balmoral' (pattypan); 'Silver Bush' (zuke); 'Spineless Beauty' Broccoli: 'Packman' Hopes this helps some and I hope I got the names right. Kinda under the weather, but at the stage where I need to do something. Tomorrow is planned seed readiness day! Susan Here is a link that might be...

Look down a few threads. :-) Here is a link that might be useful: fall gardening

Jennifer, Would you believe you are not the first one to ask that question? Thanks, it is a lovely compliment. There are many great gardening books out there, and I can't imagine I could find a way to say anything that hasn't already been said before. And, I can't sit still long enough to ever write a book. I often DO joke that I AM writing a book here on Garden Web, one thread at a time. LOL Dawn