planatus does bring up a good point about the round vs oblong varieties. It seems this melon has already been crossed to plenty of other stuff. Either of you know how that works genetically? cc definitely looks like the definition of oblong to me, which makes me think oblong is the way to go, but I also love variation and making new things. IF I were to put round m&s to cc, are the results going to remotely predictable? I was mostly planning to look for the heaviest weight I could sense thats the first thing I'll be going for. Maybe down the road I'll worry about mixing taste/resistance into it, but for the first step, I just want to make big cool melons. I cant find it, but I saw some seed someone developed that made the m&s look slightly pear shaped, and I thought that might have been from crossing round to oblong, but I thought round was typically an absolute trait as opposed to something line bred. maybe there are both. I wish I had bookmarked that page. I really love the idea of making new things. Growing the same stuff as everybody else would never be good enough for my personality type. An example would be roaches. I breed them as feeders for my pet lizards. Was that good enough? NO. lol. I had to select the most colorful, and the biggest, and start side roach colonies to try and improve things. Its really ingrained in me for some reason, so as I get more and more into gardening, I'll definitely be spending my life trying to make new things and improvements every year :) I love the idea of open pollinated plants because of their variation, and am not fond of patented seeds. I'd rather be the guy making cool new things in a natural way and sharing them with others, as opposed to letting some scientist do it for me then telling me I cant play with it in future generations. Its really a big part of the fun to me, even if I have some crops fail once in awhile because of that unpredictability. for whatever reason, I feel like this line should stay red fleshed. orange/yellow look nice, but not as yummy as red. I'll worry about colors down the road if I change my mind. I'm only 32, so i have plenty of time. If I grow a 200 lb melon with bright yellow moon and stars on it in the next decade, this will be a success. I have patients ;) Although realistically, it'll probably be done by someone in the south with my seeds which would still give me much satisfaction (I'm in MI so 200lb might be out of reach until I get south). anyway, sorry about rambling on so much. I like talking plants :)

My Little Gem watermelon seeded Mem Day never germinated so in mid-June I seeded more knowing it was a long shot. They finally started growing and just recently started flowering but no fruit at all - not even pea-sized. I think it was just too cool this summer. (Edit - I did find a marble-sized watermelon today) My cantaloupe seeded Mem Day now has 2 melons on it, 1 almost ripe and the other seeded mid-June has a small green melon on it that I hope will have time to ripen before frost. It's been a bad summer for everything - I had some decent zucchini but (edit) NOT nearly as many as I should have, didn't keep up with SVB and now it's getting PM so time to pull them. I started a 2nd planting a month ago and hope to harvest off those into Oct since they're in a tunnel (and I just ordered plastic today). Cukes have to be pulled too, though the melons to the west of them look good, no PM or wilt. This post was edited by ajsmama on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 20:45

I know this is an old thread, but I have stuff to say and the last post was a question. Anyway, yes. The F1 seeds should all be the same (they will express all the dominant traits between both parents), unless one or both of the parents weren't stabilized. When you cross-pollinate a female Congo flower with Moon and Stars pollen, if that fruit grows and produces seeds, those will be F1 seeds (and all the crossed plants resulting from those seeds should have stars on the leaves, since that's a dominant trait; if they don't have stars, then something else pollinated those Congo seeds; one unit of pollen corresponds with one seed; so all the seeds in a single fruit do not necessarily have the same father). If you grow out your F1 cross and save seeds, those will be F2 seeds, and that's when every seed should be less predictable. Anyway, I know the stars are dominant, because I grew Moon and Stars last year, for the first time, along with about 14 other kinds of watermelons, and I saved seeds. This year, several of them have stars on the leaves (e.g. Fairfax, Wondermelon, King Winter, Ledmon, Tom Watson, Weeks NC Giant, Daisy and maybe others). Anyway, I'm pretty excited about all the crosses (especially since I know exactly what some of them are; Ledmon and Fairfax may have been crossed the year before with something else, too). My Moon and Stars last year didn't have any moons, though (it just had stars). We'll see if any get moons, this year. I'm growing Congo this year, from saved seeds (but I didn't grow it last year with Moon and Stars; I grew it the year before with some other melons). The stars are a really nice trait for breeding F1 hybrids, since it's a dominant trait you see when the plant is very young, and it's an easy way to see if your cross was successful. I just noticed the question title, though, which indicates Moon and Stars is the mother (e.g. Moon and Stars x Congo). It'll be harder to tell if the cross took there, since the F1 leaves should have stars no matter what pollinates it. (The F2 leaves could have stars or no stars, though. If it has no stars, and you save the seeds from one without stars, then all its descendants should have no stars, unless they're crossed again with something that has stars, or unless it's a mutation or something.) I let my plants cross naturally. I just plant them close together with lots of varieties in hopes of getting lots of crosses. In my crossed plants, it seems (where a cross happened) just 1 or 2 of the seeds in a group out of maybe 15 seeds turned out to be crossed with Moon and Stars. The other seeds might be crossed with other watermelons (or else pollinated by the same plant). It's good to know that the stars aren't from something like mtDNA or cpDNA, though (which should normally be passed from the mother, rather than the father—the trait didn't come from the mother plants on my crosses). Some tomato variegation can be from that sort of DNA; so, that's why I mention this.

Do this: 1. By new seeds 2. Set up a fan that blows constantly on the plants 3. Use light supplement 16hrs then dark for 8 4. Use a regular flat tray 5. Use a peat base light mix (soilless media) 6. Use a heat only until seeds sprout (no more than 80-85F 7. After sprouting just let them be at an ambient temp of around 60F-70F 8. If there is a window for them to get natural light occasionally that would be great The way those sprouted up like that is NOT what they should look like. It should take them 8 weeks to get that tall. Too much heat on them. And remember not to overwater or underwater. Use a spray bottle multiple times a day to keep media moist but not sopping.