I am adding to this old thread that is 15 years old. I have picked up a lot of info from these threads on numerous cultivars that has helped me in my trials of many varieties. I found it interesting that farmerdilla has pale colored Yellow Doll. Different soils and temps can have effects like this obviously. Yellow Doll grown here in Florida is not a pale yellow but takes on a nice bright yellow. I have been growing that early variety here for a very long time. I grow it for it's earliness, for to me, it is the best early variety I have grown. Has anyone grown the variety Royalty? That variety is a 20-22 lb melon which supposedly ripens in 70 days. Noted for being a great pollinator and has an extended flowering period which will help with a seedless variety if you are growing them. I am going to put that one out in South Florida and start it very early so I can have watermelon starting out in early March. I also just noticed this thread started out as most vigorous vines! lol I think Orangeglo is at the top of my list but I have not grown some known for their aggressive nature and am not interested in doing so. I grow strictly for flavor and production. I will sacrifice production to get the quality of flavor I want, but if I can get both, then that is the cats meow. To me, nothing beat Gold Strike! It had it all. I do not see it ever being available again, which saddens me!

Wayne: I've got the seeded Star Brite, Long Crimson, and Peddler. Seedless include Sweet Slice, Orange Crisp, Cut Master ESL, Trillion, Super Seedless 7167, Crispy Red, SX7405, Cooperstown, and Pasha Red. Once again Star Brite is the clear leader. It way outgrew all the others and is the only one ripening fruit at this point. Harvested one today at 42 lbs and have a bigger one coming soon. Brix has been very good at about 13.5-14. I'll post pictures and a brix reading on the biggest one when it ripens. They are actually bordering on too sweet this year. And SB has good texture plus not too seedy. Not sure why I keep planting anything else when Star Brite works so well for me. I've gotten the water and fertilizer just right this year for high yields and great quality.

fruitnut, I have a report to be posted soon. One of my Raspa was fantastic. They are blocky round and more like Crimsom Sweet...34 pounds and 33½ pounds and very sweet and tasty. Sangria produced a beauty...25 pounds. My one Carmen plant produced a 36½ pound and a 27½ pounder....very good. I was disappointed in the taste of the two Starbrites. I just finished a SSX 7405 seedless...quite good. This ones seems to be a good grower/producer unlike most seedless for me. Truckbuster is huge and quite good in the middle but only fair outside the middle...losts of middle though. A pleasant surprize is my fence row Orangeglo....virgin soil!!!...no disease. That plant almost died because of flooding conditions near it earlier. then it got a little bit of herbicide 2 or 3 times. finally it took off. I have never seen such a healthy plant. I have picked off about 8 fruits to keep it down to 4 fruits. It looks like it could make some really nice ones. Again, what good disease free soil can do! Around my place there have been gardens and fruit for a 100 years and more so it is hard to find a new place that is watermelon suitable.

Hi VeggieKing: It was a marginal watermelon year for me overall. I did get a slow start and it was quite a cool summer here -- in fact we never ran the air conditioning once this summer. Next year will be better, I'm sure. Summary: Moon and Stars Yellow: harvested 3 of these. Two were good, one was bland. Biggest one was 13 pounds Black Diamond (red flesh): harvested 2 of these. First one was average; 2nd one is in my fridge now; only about 8 pounds Carolina Cross: plant was very vigorous and had a wonderful melon going. Gopher got into watermelon patch and killed this plant! Melon only hit about 35 pounds -- I think it was probably good for 80 or so given the way it was growing. I haven't cut it open yet. I left it on the dead vine for almost 3 weeks in the hope it would ripen up -- sounds ripe but won't know until I get out the knife. So, next year I'll be planting much earlier, mid-april. Now here's a late-breaking news flash. Got an envelope in the mail today from Lloyd Bright, of giant watermelon fame. I swear this was completely unsolicited, unless memory fails me. He sent some CC seeds from a couple of plants that produced >200 pound melons along with growing instructions. I almost fell off my chair when I opened this up! So I think next year will be a very good year indeed. I'll probably grow 5 or more plants and see how they do. Can't wait! PS: Our twins celebrated their 1st birthday today! Wayne