CarolynCl, I think the Japanese are excellent breeders of hybrids, but are there any true Japanese heirlooms? I love their Sunrise melon but don't know if it's Heirloom/OP or hybrid. Some of the other melons (Gaya, Hanmei, Kondoz) at the Asian markets were nowhere near as good as that. I've had some Vietnamese melons, too - I think those were heirlooms and they were also just OK. And they were supposedly grown near Bakersfield. The one heirloom from Khazastan (Kazakh), a white fleshed melon, was excellent. Last few years in the fall, the stores started carrying a large football shaped melon with netting, I forgot what it was called. It was good, but not great, and the local store told me they only sold about half its inventory. reign - Concord grapes for watermelons sounds like a great deal to me. And if you make jam or jelly from a neighbor's pickings, that's outstanding. Nothing beats homemade. As for foliage reports, I have been through the Adirondacks, Shenandoah, and Colorado during fall leaf drop. It's truly beautiful and eerie knowing that after all those gold and red leaves fall, it'll be nothing but limbs and branches for another six months or so. Wayne 5 - Thanks for your reply. I am often in shock when someone says I hate cantloupes/melons. They will eat them in a fruit salad and if the flavor isn't too pronounced. I don't grow the Crenshaw/Sugarshaw varieties, but I do buy them when they're in season. They have a silky smooth texture bursting with juice. Alas, I have one melon that isn't doing too well again for the second year - Montreal Melon. It's turning yellow, and the growth has slowed and looks like early blight is taking hold. Our June Gloom with cloud cover till 1 PM and high humidity 72 degree days just aren't warm enough. The first Ambrosias are looking great and should be ready this week. It should be around 2-3 lbs, though they grow to 5. The charentais planted the same time as Montreal melon have lots of blossoms. The Yellow Doll hybrid watermelon is about softball size now. Butterscotch is now getting fruit (planted about 45 days ago).

I hope you've seen some fruit by now, gardenerlady! From what I've heard, it's normal to see only one kind of flower (male) on melons and cucumbers early in the season. I wouldn't call Mid-July "early", though...was the weather too cool, maybe? I haven't been gardening for very many years, but I've always noticed that cucurbits produce male flowers for what seems like weeks (it really isn't) before they finally start producing female flowers. It goes along like tht just enough to make me god and worried, and then it resolves itself. This has been an interesting thread to backread; I'm growing some Prescott Fond Blancs myself, and two melons did slip from the vine sort of early. They're nice enough, decently sweet, but nothing to write home about. Then I read the observations on overwatering, and thought "Oh." It's been very hot here, and some of their leaves got toasted on the vine, so I was watering them a lot, just soaking them. Maybe I'll cut back on the water a bit and see if my future melons are sweeter. They have a wonderful scent, though! It's sweet and spicy, sort of like melon and sort of like cedar wood.

I've grown various Charentais melons over the years and they are hands down the best flavored canteloupe of them all. I really suggest the F1 hybrids, the open pollinated varieties are great for gardeners but are unreliable for selling. "Savor" is my standby, it's a true Charentais with thin, smooth blue/grey rind, and no netting. It produces a little later than most muskmelons and needs plenty of heat in Sept. to finish up well. It doesn't slip, so it needs to be cut from the stem and the only way to know the right time is by experience. Too early and it's firm and not as sweet as can be, too late and it's cracked, soft inside and overly sweet (the kind you get drunk on). The other Charentais I find reliable is called "French Orange". It's an F1 that's got a parent with some netting to help it store a little better, but it doesn't have the classic, smooth, blue appearance (the french would pou-pou it). While not quite as flavorful as "Savor", it matures earlier and still has fantastic sugar levels and that classic Charentais taste. It does slip from the vine, making it a lot easier to harvest at the pefect time. Once customers catch on, I sell both of these melons as fast as they hit the table and due to their size, I get a higher price than the large musks. Hope this helps. -Mark

Quailhunter - I saw your question to me in the "Um... oops" thread about what kind of watermelons I was raising, but I thought I'd answer here so you could keep all your watermelon info in one thread. Most of my watermelons are volunteers so I'm not quite sure what kind they are. Last summer we ate a lot of watermelons and I convinced my mother to start a compost bin. This spring she brought over the compost and dumped it in one of my flower beds. In a few weeks, I had dozens of watermelon sprouts. I transplanted them around my place and they survived. Also, Dawn had sent me seeds for Black Tail Mountain and Criss Cross. Between her seeds and my volunteers, at one point I counted and had 40 plants. At this point, most of the plants have grown together so I have trouble telling what's coming from where even if I knew what they were. I have the following types: 1. Black tail mountain - these are easy to identify because they're small and dark green with darker green, almost black, stripes. I've eaten two or three and none were fully ripe. Actually, out of the five or six watermelons I've cracked open, I have yet to get one that's dark red and fully ripe. My grandfather said the ones I gave him were perfect, though. Anyway, the black tails I ate were sweet at the core despite being not quite done. They had a lot of seeds, but to me it seemed like the same number as a full sized watermelon. It's just the seeds were very small, like the melon! I've found that if you cut the melon longways, you can scoop out all the seeds at once very easily, which is fine for a small melon like a black tail that you intend to eat all in one sitting. I'd grow these if I had a limited area or lived alone and wanted melons I could eat in a sitting. Two of these that I've eaten have been eaten just sitting out next to the melon patch with a pocket knife. 2. Criss cross - I have at least two plants of this, but have yet to get a fruit. I picked one and it dropped on the ground before I got in and it was totally unripe anyway. All white on the inside. The rind is light green with dark green stripes and it's round, volleyball sized. I have two fruit left, one of which has been savaged by a coyote and might not make it. 3. Black diamond - or so I suspect. That's what my grandfather said they looked like. Solid dark green rind that gets a light sheen of yellow/gold when ripe. I had one that must have been 35-45 pounds that I gave to a neighbor for their son's birthday party. I have 20-30 of these plants around and they're doing fine. I've eaten four or five of them. They taste very good, even if not perfectly ripe. The watermelon jelly was made from them. Big seeds. I'll be pleased if they're open pollinated. Does anyone know? I will save some seeds from them to plant next year. They're a bit big, but I have two kids who like watermelon and I like it too and it makes an impressive gift to give relatives and friends. 4. Gibson's Grey - or at least that's what my grandfather called it. It's an oblong, light green melon with a faint tracery of darker green netting-coloration. I have two or three plants (at least I have three big fruits) and I haven't picked one yet but I'll get one later this week because it has a blemish on the bottom that's starting to rot. 5. Mystery melon - I also have an oblong melon that's light green with dark green stripes. It has the perfect imprint of a coyote's teeth on it, top and bottom, but the critter couldn't get it open or get away with it. It's probably 20-30 pounds right now and should be getting ripe soon. I only have one of these and haven't eaten one. I have had no insect problems on any melons, no particular issues with drought, fungus, splitting, etc. I've had some coyote problems and a lot of issues with figuring out when they're ripe. This is only my first time to grow watermelons. Previously, I lived with a tiny, tiny garden area in St. Paul, with a short growing season coupled with no space. So I never tried watermelons. It seems to me that I'm only getting 1.5 melons per plant, but even now I have new melons forming and growing so maybe by the end of the season I'll have 2 or 3 per plant. Or perhaps I'm not tending them right. I haven't watered my watermelons since the end of June. Partly this is because I no longer have the hoses to reach them, but also I've just been letting them suffer because I'm cheap and it seems like they won't die if I neglect them a little on the water front. I haven't given them fertilizer or sprayed them with bug spray. I did till in tons of horse manure and bedding a couple months before planting where about half the watermelons are. The other half seems to be doing just as well though. Most of the plants are very well mulched. Make of this what you will. Good luck! (and if you're around the NE area, you can stop by and I'll give you all the seeds you want. They're probably Black Diamond, but no guarantees. :) )