Growing various Melons 4 D Novices

Thank you Rita, unlike NicoleC. My pickleworms arn't tapering down, but I think they're at their peak? I find them on every spent flowers on my melons/calabash. Plus, they dug holes into terminal vines and leaf stems. The spent flowers are safe haven for cucumber beetles, as well as those pesky worms. So I've to hand pick all of them off the vine to prevent further damage.

By far, only the Luffas are coming out of these unaffected. Did you know? These worms when disturbed they dropped from the infested sites and they have a silk-like string to hang on to as they drop to the ground? And those cucumber beetles, they drop to safety as appose to fly off from danger. Some defend mechanism they have!

The good thing is; I harvested my first two Luffas fruits today. ^_^

Luffas look good.

Are you eating your luffas? If not, I recommend letting them sit on the vine until the plant is totally dead, or at least until they are brown and crunchy. They make better sponges when totally ripe, and are easier to peel and seed, too.

I've never had anything on luffas except squash bugs, and the plant didn't seem to mind much.

P.s. your deck/dock is gorgeous!

Yes I'm going to cook the luffas, I saved the 1st fruit to maturity for sponge-making, also harvest the seeds for next year growing. Thanks Nicole, the deck is the only sunny location in the garden to support vegetables and other sun loving ornamentals. I wished we've more land.

Sugar Cube. Yummy!

That's yummy! Ahhhh, I'm jealous, lol

The destruction of pickleworms/melonworms on my various melons this season. The upside to this whole experience is, family, neighbors & friends love to visit my garden-- not to look at the damaged fruits of course.

As of this morning, the pickleworms are still active in the garden, so are cucumber beetles Arghhh!!!!!

Ugg! How aweful.

1. From Sunrise ...
2. To nearly sunset ...
3. Beyond the ruins ...
4. One can see the beauty in the garden ... still.

So far, the white-flower calabash (must be a winter melon) isn't susceptible to the worms. But in close inspection, there is damage evidence on the flower. I was so happy to have found out that the 1st flower made from this vine was hand pollinated, it took, and some how it escaped the worm.

1. A newly mature female flower on the elongated winter melon.
2. Day #5 after hand-pollination on the very first fruit from this vine. Thus far, it's roughly a foot- long fruit.

Wow, they grow fast.

Yes, this melon is growing very, very fast. I can almost see the difference from morning until the day ends.

Urgggg! I am so upset, I found the monster bugs on my Luffa fruit! There was another one ready to harvest. I cut it down to see tiny little holes and some live worms on it. I cut the fruit open. Oddly enough, they only dug/chewed the green tough skin of the fruit, but didn't tunnel into the tender fruit under neath.

I cut off several more feet off of the new damages on those vines, and leave/stems. Every one segment I cut off there were pickleworm inside.

Bahumbugs, indeed. But your view is spectacular!

I have tried everything for getting rid of bugs, but I just don't know if anything can compete with summer bugs in the deep south. My garden store people say "two for the bugs, one for the humans" when it comes to plants this time of year.

"two for the bugs, one for the humans" .... Nola THAT it's!!! That shall be my motto for the garden from here on. LOL, there ought to be enough for every living thing. Under one condition. If ONLY they will spare this melon for ME. LOL All joke aside, this fruit will be interesting once mature; if I can save it from the bugs. It's nearly two feet long today. I'll try to remember to bring a measuring tape outdoor to measure its progress daily.

I thank you for the compliment, the view is pretty, unless the storm hits. Other time, flood is another problem here. Thankfully flood is a rare occurrence here, though this spring we had two (floods) back to back. It wasn't pretty then.

Photos taken just as sunrises this morning.

I sure looks pretty in those pictures.

Nola, you're the second gardener friend from DG who suggested that. The 1st one was drthor from TX.

It's done! I went out to the garden this evening to measure the winter melon, then covered it with old hose. I ain't giving in, or giving up without a fair fight. lol Thank you for the suggestion. I did pick roughly half a dozen of the worms earlier during the day. The number of cucumber beetles also seems to dwindling down as well.

Oh, the melon is 19" at present. More flowers are being produced, quite a few are matured this evening.

Oh, question please, will the leaf-footed bug be harmful to our crops?

The bug in question. Urgh!

Here is to our wish for a calm and peaceful season for us all. Good night everyone, 'til we meet again. Happy gardening.

Yeah, that leaf-footed bug is a jerk, he eats flowers and fruit. The assassin bug looks kind've the same, but is a "good bug". I can only tell them apart as babies - the leaf-footed nymphs are "social" and hang out in a group, while assassin bugs...go undercover? ;)

I'm glad Drthor and I agree, her expertise is superior judging from her harvests! I've covered my plants up with tulle since reading DG. I have a store-bought "greenhouse" with soft sides that's supposed to do the same trick, but I caught more bugs inside it than anything else. Live and learn, homemade is better, as usual.

I've tried everything to zap the bugs in my garden, and so far the only thing that works on the regular is #1 consistently getting out there to see what's happening #2 while it's early enough to beat the bugs awake and #3 wearing gloves, even when it's hot out. I'm fortunate enough to have bees visiting my lemons & bananas right now, but I keep forgetting they're here (they seem to only be here twice a year) and have nearly picked a few up while cleaning up. Gave the neighbors quite the laugh yesterday when an angry bee zoomed right up my dress.

Veggie gardening also seems to bring out more bugs than I've ever seen! I don't even know what half of them are some days, but anything I catch chewing goes straight to bug heaven.

Oh, and a good no-nonsense book for us down here is "Southern Kitchen Garden" by Adams & Leroy. I also like "From Seed To Skillet", by Jimmy Williams, but more as a coffee-table book than a guide, as he seems to be able to grow or cook anything. Lucky duck, he's a Californian with plenty of sunshine and room to grow stuff.

Also, Lily, since you're growing mostly in containers (smart in flood prone places!), do you change out your potting soil ever? I always say I will, but procrastination.

In regarding the good and the bad bugs in the garden. It seems some of the 'good guys' (implying good bugs) can transmit disease to humans. I've gained a new respect for those assassin bugs, and leave them well alone for fear of mishandling them may contract illness. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1327558/#top

In regard to changing out potting soil. For my ornamental, I seldomly repot them unless if there are signs of decline in their performance. With veggies, I understand the principle of rotating crops. So, I'll try to plant a different crop in these containers to avoid diseases/pests.

Dirt also transmits diseases and parasites to humans, some quite nasty. (All quite rare.) I would not get unduly worried about diseases from assassin bugs. Compared to ticks and mosquitoes, they aren't even on the radar.

Update; day #8 after hand-pollination on the white-flower winter melon. It's now exceeded 2 feet! Yah! 27" to be exact. lol

Thanks go out to Nola and drthor for the suggestion of covering the fruit. It's growing leaps and bounds. It must be one of those 'yard-long' variety. lol

The down side to it all, my yellow flower winter melon is beginning to show sign of fungal problem on the leaves. The vine appears to fizzle out, I can't find any new female flowers, and the last male flower fell off yesterday. :((

The assassin bugs will also leave a nasty bite/sting on you. I found this out the hard way.

Good for your white winter melon! I can't keep fungus out of my garden, but I have managed to curb it a little with a liquid copper fungicide. Of course, with all this rain, it's not staying on. No wonder the fungus is so happy.

Two melons this morning. The little one is the size I have been harvesting from my melons growing in a pot. The big one is the same variety (Sugar Cube) grown in ground.

Ate some melons this morning.

Okay, Rita. Rub it in, rub it in some more won't you? LOL Congrats. That's fantastic! Great job. Thanks for sharing.

My crop appears to be a major loss. 80%-90% I dare say. No cantaloupes by far this go-round. The yellow flower winter melon is 100% failed. I was forced to cut them off the vine because those critters have "drilled" holes within the petioles connecting the fruits. Total ruin. sniff sniff*

As to the melons, my Sugar Cubes grown in a pot are much smaller than the ones in ground. But there are more melons on the potted vines. They are sweet though so very tasty.

Next year I want to grow a lot of melons. Well, A lot for me anyway. I have a nice raised square bed that I have tomatoes in this year. Planning on doing melons there next year. I figured out the layout I can use and will grow them vertically and can have 8 groupings. So can do 8 different types or do more than one grouping of a type if I want.

And I have another space next to the cucumber trellis. Am moving out a small grouping of daylilies and transplanting them. Then will have two vertical trellis sections of about 4 feet long each. Going to plant melons there also. So should have lots of melons if things go well next year.

I am really sorry about your crop failure, Lily Love. I would be pretty discuraged if I were you. So sorry!

Yes, I'm disappointed, but not discouraged yet! I'm gonna try them again, until I succeed. If I can learn to accept "Two for the bugs, 1 for the humans" I'll grow my garden again. Good night all. There will be a brighter day tomorrow for the garden.

Lily, the pattern of damage and the extent you are reporting is very strange. Holes in the fruits is normal, extensive vine damage from pickleworm is not. Are you *sure* you don't also have SVB?

My other thought is that you might be over-tending those infested vines. Unless that part of the plant is dead, I wouldn't cut it off. The leaves are still feeding the rest of the plant. Even when I had the SVB reign of terror last year, some plants rerooted themselves and forged on and eventually produced at least some crop.

Thanks Nicole for your thought. I need to study more about the pickleworm infestation. I saw two different looking caterpillars eating/tunneling into the leave stems and the vines. One with tiny dots, and the other are opaque to greenish looking bigger caterpillars. I'm unsure if these maybe the SVB cats.? Anyhow, as of now they seemed to be tapering down. I found one pupa and rid of it. No cucumber beetle found today. Yeah!!!

SVB is pretty brutal; their m.o. is tunneling inside stems. They are mostly white and fatter than pickleworm. Pickleworm start out white with tiny spots and typically turn greenish but may be other colors depending on what they are eating.

SVB *does* overwinter here, but they are strong flyers. Sanitation is good but no help f they fly n from somewhere else. The best defense is planting resistant species of squash like C. moschata and to a lesser extent, C. mixta.

C. pepo is apparently their favorite meal.

That sure is an important lesson. Nicole, I think I've both pickleworm and the dreaded SVB worms as well. Yike.

It's drizzling out there this morning, I was delighted to find another of this 'yard long' melon on the vine.

Ate this melon at lunch.

I picked two larger melons today. In fact that large one is the largest I have gotten so far this year. I am sure they will be tasty as they already smell wonderful.

Yummy!

SVB destroyed my yellow flower calabash. But the White flower calabash (winter melon) continues to get bigger and bigger. I'm waiting for the temp. to cool down before I go out to the garden and take down the destroyed vine. Two other melons seedlings were also killed by the bugs.

I shall make a note to be certain to plant these type of melons earlier in the spring next year.