Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 5 Entries. Wednesday, June 21 View Page A little late to the party this year, but I am still giving things a try. Here is my watermelon. I lost the marker when she was an infant, so don't know for sure her lineage. Started seeds on April 14 and put her out into heated cloche with soil heating cables. She now takes up well over 150 sq ft and is starting to put out flowers, both male and female. I am going to let mother nature do the pollinating and I will do the sorting/pruning later. Brought in a big Indian mint plant to help draw in pollinators. The City here sprays the town for mosquitos using Government grant money to pay for it all, so pollinators here are at a very low density. I also planted extra flowers around the patch for pollinators.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page A photo from other side of the stump.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page My long gourd is half way up the 14 ft trellis. Plant showed early Ca deficiency with cupping leaves with yellowing on the margins. Mix up a 150 ppm mixture of General Hydroponics CaliMagic and give it a foliar treatment every couple days. Seems to have worked. I was late getting my elemental sulfur into this area and I suspect I was locking out the Ca because of high Ph. I think things will balance out as the season progresses and the soil Ph continues to drop. Soil tested at Ph 7.2 early this spring.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page Giving giant beets a try growing in a straw bale. First time with both giant beets and straw bale gardening. The beets are already the size of a tea cup. I may have to thin out a couple if they get really big.   Wednesday, June 21 View Page Also a first attempt is a try at long carrots. The tubes were first filled with sand, then a 3 inch hole was bored down to the bottom using a PVC pipe. I back filled the hole with good quality potting mix and planted on top of the now soil filled holes. My outside tubes are 12 inches across, and I bored 4 holes in each tube, so 4 carrots per tube. After they got going good, I pushed a 1/2 inch pipe down into the center of the tube about half way down, then removed the sand and reinserted the pipe. I now put a funnel on top of the pipe and water down the pipe to get the roots pushing for the lower moisture. Interesting and fun. Fingers crossed for 3 footers.