I am over here in Southeast Montana and have sandy soil that melons love. When I started raising melons in the 1970's, my Burpee Hybrid muskmelons were simply delicious, now I cannot get hardly anything good out of a muskmelon. The exception was the Sunder which was superb, but Willhite quit selling. I can get good-tasting Savors in the early part of the season, but the later ones rot before they taste good. As for watermelons, some do not do well for me (Desert King). I have had only two watermelons that had a "perfume" when eaten. The one I remember the most was a White Seeded Simpson. I used to grow lots of watermelons, did not rotate and eventually my field got too diseased. Now, years later, I start on new ground, till in lots of leaves and I have vines all over the place. I really like the Sweet Favorite. They ripen early (around a month after setting on), and I can turn around and get two crops off the same vine. Some Sweet Favorites do not get the sweetness of the others, I wonder if one should withhold the water for a few weeks before ripening. To tell when a melon is ripe: I used to scratch the melon with the date it set on. For example, if a melon set on July 19, I would take a knife or nail and scratch "J19 on the skin and the resulting scar would remain. Then, since it takes six weeks for most watermelons to ripen, I would harvest the melon six weeks later (September 1st for the above J19 melon. Now, I think I will take an ear tag (that they use in a calf's ear), and if a watermelon sets on July 19 th, write that on the ear tag and set it beside the melon. I actually would go out July 23 d, see a watermelon the size of a chicken egg, and subtract a few days and write J19 on the tag. But I do agree that the Orange Glo is a very delicious watermelon. And it has a taste that is more than sweet. This year my Orange Glos tailed off in sweetness at the end of the season. I tried the Moon and Stars a few years ago and was impressed with their earliness. But I ran into problems this past year as I picked the first ones too early. I think that in excellent soil, they ripen later than if they are on just average soil. And they do taste very good. This year, I will plant around 50% Sweet Favorite and 50% Moon and Stars. With a few new ones. I finally found a source for the Tiger Baby (Anderson Seed and Garden Logan Utah.) The Tiger Baby is a small melon, short vines and ripens in 30 days from setting on for me. The flesh is only pink, but I am going to try plastic tunnels, underground heating to try and get very early melons. I like to take a heat lamp (put in a 100 watt bulb), and set it next to the watermelon plants in the plastic hot kap for overnight heating of the soil (heat lamp is face down on the dirt). Sometimes the bulb breaks due to moisture on the bulb. But the plants really thrive and grow fast if it is 100 degrees in the hot kap at night. I like the Tiger Baby's short vines because I have to cover all my watermelons with wire with small holes due to the hail we seem to get every year. Is that called hardware cloth?

Dear Mrs G, We suppose that some clarification is in order before these suburban legends ripen into received truths. Particularly to correct the order of causation. We received the Early Crawford in the early 1980s, if memory serves, from the former experiment station at Prosser WA, which is no longer. Our principal gnome started the scion exchanges of the CRFG organization in 1983/4, and Early Crawford was one of the original varieties he made available then and in subsequent years. It has disseminated (actually, disscionated) from there and has been propagated by many. Our gnome also was the person who gathered together from our orchard the propagating material for the heritage orchard planted at Emma Prusch Memorial Farm Park of the City of San Jose, which was intended to preserve the fruit varieties of the Santa Clara Valley. This was ca. 1996. A tree of Early Crawford was propagated, but was not planted at Prusch Park, instead ended up in the orchard at Filoli, a property of National Trust for Historic Preservation. This because City of San Jose reduced the space available for trees. So no Early Crawford could ever have come from Prusch Park. Our gnome has not been involved in the scion exchanges since 1999, and cannot answer for trueness to type of any Early Crawford except those issuing from The Arboreum Company or the USDA National Clonal Germplasm Repository (GRIN), which was propagated from ours. The Arboreum Company certainly does not gather propagating material for our use from the Prusch Park orchard and Crawford material at any scion exchange does not come from Prusch Park. We do know that scions at the various exchanges are handled very promiscuously and come from various sources, are spread out on tables and grabbed up again to be rebagged and sent on to other exchanges. Obviously we do not rely upon such sources. We received some 20 years ago material purporting to be Oldmixon Free and it was planted (on probation) at Prusch Park. Upon fruiting, we considered it more likely the 'Oldmixon Free Improved' found in Stark Bro's catalogs of the 1920s, for the reasons stated by Scott Smith. And so it was labelled in the Prusch orchard. From there it has travelled the route of scion exchanges and may have shed its qualifier "improved" from time to time. Our friend Charlotte Shelton has many times promised us a tree of Tom Burford's Oldmixon for comparison, but it hasn't happened yet. The gnomes at The Arboreum Company

"Re-reading this thread, I realized that I initially missed the significance of that comment." As did I and would appreciate the info. Got to play a bit today before the rain set in ... Patch #1 is starting to look more like a corn patch ;) Patch #2 is trying to catch up ... Patch #2 is limited to the first 2 beds from the left ... next bed over is onions and then tater patch #2. Will most likely never do this again ... but, for now, it seems pretty .... and keeps me busy.

I concentrate on preserves and condiments since a lot of this is intended for gifts. 7 jars Cherry jam 9 jars Strawberry jam w/raspberry juice and balsamic vinegar 7 jars raspberry jelly 6 jars Cherry and raspberry jam w/ kirsch 7 jars plus 2 pints Blueberry jam 5 jars Plum and Orange jam with cardemon 5 jars "Peach Preserves for a Cold Morning" 7 jars Tomato chutney 8 jars Peach and Ginger chutney 6 jars Tomato ketchup 7 pts Annie's Salsa 4 pts Pickled beans w/ rosemary and oregano 5 qts Mixed mustard pickles 6 qts Dill pickles 9 pts Sweet pickles 28 qts whole tomatoes In the freezer: (for us) 8 qts Pseudo V-8 juice 10 qt bags of pesto (frozen in ice cubes) 6 qts corn 4 qts Roasted garlic - Tomato pasta sauce Here is what some of it looks like: the shelf unit was a gift from a colleague.