Starting S. Florida Summer Garden

Late last week I cleared out the winter/spring stuff (maters, peppers and some old herbs) from the garden to make room for the summer crop. I'm trying my hand at melons and cukes. They grew pretty well for me last summer. I planted 5 mounds - Early Hanover melon (green flesh), Charentais melon (pink/red flesh from France), Longfellow cukes, Yellow Petite watermelon and Blacktail Mountain watermelon. As of today, all 70 seeds I planted have germinated and I have teeny melon and cuke seedlings. I got the seeds from Baker Creek. As soon as the seedlings start turning into something larger I'll post a few pics. Has anyone grown any of these before? These are all first-timers in my garden.

Flip

17 days later - progress pics - starting to put out some nice looking vines

Lower left - Charentais
Lower right - Yellow Petite
Upper left - Longfellow cukes
Upper middle - Early Hanover
(Blacktail Mountain - hidden behind herbs)

Another shot of the upper row - check out all the little green things around the mounds - about 50-60 little tomato plants from last season's seeds that decided to pop up.
Flip

Lucky you with so many growing seasons! I get this feeling you might let a tomato seedling or two stay and volunteer just to see...? Good luck with the melons! Mr.Groundhog got ours along with the spaghetti squash. Somehow he missed a couple of Moon & Stars watermelon, maybe it is because we didn't fence them in so he would know right where to go!!

Thanks for the update Flip.
-Kim

Kim, thanks for the note. My melon and cuke vines have grown a foot in the past day. You know I'm gonna try and let some of them maters go just on general principles, even though it's pretty hot down here. I grew some cherry types last summer and they did ok. We'll see. I've been following your thread too and your gardens look great! Keep up the good work.
Flip

Hi Flip - If those tomatoes can make it through the rest of July and August you are home free! Don't remember if I asked, in what part of Miami do you live? I went to UM and lived in Kendall and South Miami then moved to Ft. Lauderdale until '04.

MD is a different world but fun! I have not forgotten you guys down there when I come back to visit or ropa vieja and plantains! Can't grow that :)

-Kim

Hi Kim - I live off Old Cutler and SW144 St, kinda near the Falls. It's in a recently incorporated area called the Village of Palmetto Bay. I drive by Kendall/Dadeland every day on the way to work. BTB, I'm a major 'Cane fan and my wife is latina so you know I eat some Cuban chow :-)

I used to go to MD 2-3 times a year (for about 7 years running) on business. Are you anywhere near Gaithersburg?

Have a nice day,
Flip

Why yes I do Flip, just about 12 miles north of Gaithersburg but before Frederick. If you come back make sure to let me know! I am not speaking to you anymore since you have a Cuban cook in the house and I have nada aqui. Went to one place here they called Cuban and they charged $10 for ropa vieja with NO plantains just rice. Plus it was all dry and the sauce was almost like spaghetti sauce! Tell your wife that one. So sad. Did I mention the side order of plantains were hard....

-Kim

Knock it off you guys! I'm gettin hungry! Flip, I'm going to visit you when those melons are ripe. Sounds like you have a good mix of them. Wish I could join in but too hot for my health. I'll start some of my tomato seedlings indoors next month so I'll be back in action again...

Tp - good to hear from you. I'll let you know when the melons are ready. I've got lots of yellow flowers on the vines!

I'll be with you on starting those indoor seedlings. I've started seedlings outdoors before but never indoors. This will be my first attempt and I've told both of my daughters that they will be giving me one wall in each of their rooms where I'll put up lights and benches. They're not real happy about it but I'm getting pretty psyched!

We've got to get Kim back down here so she can sample some of our gardening efforts. (I remember a few months ago when she said she was coming down for visit and wasn't able to make it. She's an ex S. Floridian.)

2 weeks later - Here's a brief update from the depths of S. Fla summertime and the garden. Garden overview - all doing fairly well except I have green worms on my vines. Also, the cukes are not doing well. I think the heat is getting them.

First melons to show - Early Hanover

10 days later - Early Hanover

And Blacktail Mountain watermelon

And finally, a Charentais (generic)

Total of eight melons on the Early Hanover. Two Charentais and three Blacktail Mountain watermelons. Now, here's the first Yellow Petite -

Two for breakfast - Yellow Petite and Early Hanover

Looks good! Would you do it again? How did they taste? I hope we come home from vacation to big watermelons this weekend!

-Kim

Hi Kim, hope you're having a good time on your vacation.

I'll always grow summer melons 'cause that's about the only thing that grows here then. The taste of the Early Hanover was OK, The Yellow Petite was bland. The Charentais was good. Blacktail Mountain is still on the vine. I don't see doing any of these again. I'll try some different ones next time. (Any suggestions?)

Flip

Yelow Doll is the best of the "icebox) yellows that I have tried. Of course I think standard size melons taste better. OrangeGlo and Tendersweet are tops for me.

FD, I was on the Baker Creek site in the process of getting some seeds and switched to DG for reference and saw your post - I ordered up the OrangeGlo - it was the only one of the three they had. Will these grow in either summer or winter down here? Flip

Don't know about full winter Flip. I was under the impression that Florida growers start plants in late winter for harvest in May-June. Orangeglo has no quirks as far as growing, it will hang and rattle with best of the standard melons. It's major drawback is it extremely fragile rind, it does not like handling and has a zero rating as a shipping melon. On the other side, it holds in the patch without splitting equal to the shipping melons. All melons have much better flavor ripening in hot weather. I have a few late melons ripening now. Flavor is much less than those which ripened in July and August. By the way, if you would like a standard red fleshed melon, Chris-Cross or Dixie Queen, both vended by Baker Creek.

The summer garden is down to a few watermelon vines. Two final melons of each variety. (I hope they hurry up and ripen as the fall veggies are due to start shortly.) A recap shows that of the five different varieties tried here, only the Blacktail Mountain and Yellow Petite will be planted again in the future. I've saved a bunch of their seeds. If anyone wants some just let me know. Here's the last pic - Blacktail Mountain that was picked and eaten last week.

aries -- Please do save a few seeds as I would like to try my hand at these. Let me know when they're ready for mailing...sasbe?

Nice goin' Flip ! It looks delicious. I'd try to grow melons if I had the room for them to spread out. Are there any varities that don't require a lot of room that I can grow in an EB ? Maybe Farmerdill can help with an answer ?

Hey TP, I don't know of any watermelons that have short vines but I think if an EB could hold the root system then you could just let the vines run out over the ground. Maybe FD has a variety for you.

Soozer, I have some ready now if you're interested now. I'm in the address exchange. If you aren't, just Dmail me and I'll send you my address.

Flip

http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/92727/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/92729/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/92728/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/92730/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/92730/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/93708/index.html
These are all short vine watermelons, with vines less than 6 feet. They are called bush, but are really juts very short vine melons. I have grown one call the Fordhook Bush back in the 60's. Did ok, but I prefer the vining types as I have room.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/96247/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/96363/index.html
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/97035/index.html
are the cantaloupes with short vines.

Thanks Farmerdill but I couldn't bring out the cantaloupe for some reason. Nice selection of bush melons that I can grow next summer. The price of watermelons that I saw today were $6.99 ea. and they were 10-12 lbs. This encourages me to grow my own and they probably will cost more next season.

Hey, Flip --

Will send out a sasbe for your seeds. Had to reread the thread to remember when to plant these...next summer. Will be well worth the wait. And I have just the place to put them. Gives me this winter to clear the patch. Have you tried growing melons vertically? Or are these too heavy? The place I had in mind would work well for a vertical garden.

Sue

Hi Sue,

Both of these melons are about the size of a small basketball, so weight wise they should not be a problem. I've never grown any melons vertically before so I'm no help there. One word on both of these - let them stay on the vine for a long time. They're sweeter when they are fully ripe. Good luck! And if you can, let us know how they do.

Flip

Thanks, Flip. Small basketball-sized is pretty hefty for vertical, I'm thinking. Would need a really heavt-duty trellis to tie-off or otherwise sling-support the large fruit...

As it is, I have a vine growing, cantaloupe maybe, in a pot that I stuck some iris into. Remember planting cantaloupe seeds last year and they didn't come up. So I'm letting this one vine ramble on out of the pot and see what happens. It is blossoming right now. :)

Sue

Hi Sue - actually they really aren't that big. They're like the size of a large cantaloupe. About 2-3 pounds. You should try one and see what happens. (When I said a small basketball I should've said a half-sized basketball. :-)

Flip

Whew! 2-3 pounders should be able to be 'hammocked' onto a sturdy trellis. Thanks for clarifying :)