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?

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.

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. :) )

chuckurso1, If I go 2 ft. down I would need a back hoe, which I don't have, and I would just create a slow draining pond. The way I combat shallow soil is to try to amend the soil and making it deeper. I like to build a berm on the low side of my garden with some type of organic matter. The berm helps with erosion, and as it decays I toss it on the garden and build another berm with whatever organic matter I have access to. Here is the berm on the south end of my south garden. The sweet potatoes are growing over the berm. This year my berm is wood chips, last year it was hay. You can see that Johnson grass has pretty well taken over my sweet potatoes because of the Jonson grass seed in last years berm being tilled into the soil. We have had a lot of hot days this summer and I have had trouble getting the fall garden started, so I tried starting greens in the shade in my north garden. The germination was much better, but I expect the growth to be slower, but that will work till I can get later plantings to catch up. This is my newest garden, it was started this year. Above the garden you can see my supply of scrap hay, I plan on using for berms or mulch. The hay is a little rough for mulch, but I will use it if I cant find anything better. Across the highway you can see my wildlife garden area, I have 6 small gardens over there, all are larger than this one. I have had health issues this year an the place looks a little "scrappy", but with the weather cooling off I will start getting things cleaned up.