Squash & cucumbers
Watermelon
Spring crop on the summer bench; sow April.
- Outside
- Direct Apr, soil 65F
- Where
- In ground or raised bed, room to run
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- Deep weekly soak; step up in August
- Harvest
- Jul to Sep, vine-ripe
Care
- Water
- Deeply and about weekly, in the early morning on the soil; skip any week that brings half an inch of rain, and lean toward the county's 1 to 2 inch August target while the fruit sizes. August is the driest month of the year here, so mulch deep and keep the long soak coming.
- Sow
- Direct sow in April into soil that has reached 65F, the county's melon class: hills of 2 to 3 seeds thinned to the strongest, with room for the vines to run. One spring sowing is the whole schedule.
- Feed
- Compost worked into the hill at planting, then a light fish-and-seaweed feed as the vines run. Hold all feeding through the July-August heat; the fruit that set before the gap does the summer's work.
- Ready
- Vine-ripe is the point: the tendril nearest the fruit dries, the ground spot turns yellow, and the thump goes hollow and deep. Twist the fruit free rather than cutting it close. An April sowing ripens across the summer bench, into September.
- Trouble
- Rotation is the sheet's one hard rule: no melons in the same spot more than once every 3 or 4 years. The heat is not the enemy; melons are on the climate note's list of crops that carry it, holding fruit through weather that stalls the rest of the bed.
In a bag?
- No
- Melons are not container crops in any source surveyed, and a fruit sizing through August wants the root run and moisture buffer of a mulched bed; the research verdict is a bed crop under the 15 gallon cap.
Watermelon sits on the summer bench here, one of the crops that carry the heat instead of fighting it: sow in April and the vines run to fall fruit.
Growing
Melons want warm soil, 65F in the county's own soil class, and the state table plants them 1 to 6 weeks after frost, which is April in practice here. They sit on the climate note's summer bench, carrying the heat that closes the fruit-set window for the rest of the bed, and they ripen across high summer. The state table's fall row computes to late July, but it is not a county practice and it starts a crop into the worst heat of the year; the honest call is spring-only, with only a fast small variety worth a July gamble. Rotate: no melons in the same spot more than once every 3 or 4 years.
Varieties
The state list: Allsweet, Black Diamond, Charleston Gray, Crimson Sweet, Jubilee, Mickylee, Mirage and Royal Jubilee. Beyond those names the sheets stay quiet; pick on days to maturity and on the size your table actually eats.
Pests
The sheets' one hard rule is rotation, no melons in the same place more than once every 3 or 4 years; beyond it the surveyed sources stay quiet on melon pests. Keep the mulch deep and the water steady.
In the kitchen
Fresh and as agua fresca, the two uses the research names: sliced off the rind through the bench, and the surplus blended into the pitcher for the fridge.