Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 43 Entries. Wednesday, January 3 View Page My apologies for stopping my dairy last year. You get a little busy, then you get behind, then you just say screw it. Well, I'm sick as a dog right now and have plenty of time on my hands so I figure id get you all caught up on my season. I'll try to keep to the good stuff and present it in a story like fashion. I hope you enjoy. I have terrible soil here. The easiest way for me to get to a competitive soil level was to import it all. I made a raised bed that was 32 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet tall. This raised bed has a wire mesh on the bottom to keep voles and moles out as much as possible. The bottom is also insulated.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page The raised bed also was lined completely with heavy black plastic so all drainage went out one end. A perforated pipe was placed in the bottom to aid in drainage. I wanted to know how much water or nutrient solution was leaving the bed. This allowed for that. All drainage was out of one 4 inch pipe.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page All of this years effort was done on the fly. I never really planned it out before hand. Ya see, my father died a little while back and he held our family record for watermelon at 128. I remember that year. It was good times. Growing watermelons gave us something to talk about and share together. My father took his 128 to Ohio Valley and we though we were going to really get embarrassed. Much to our surprise, he took first place. That was great right there. He never liked having the family record though. Anyway, here I am I'm all planted. My first set of grafted plants all failed because I tried to reinvent the wheel I guess. The second batch just barely made it. All my plants are real young.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Technical difficulties on my end. Here is the picture for the previous post. I'm all planted in.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Had to make ramps for the plants to grow down on. Some 2x2s and some plastic mesh did the job. I also have plastic mesh on top of the black plastic. Under the plastic I have irrigation lines consisting of 3/4 inch pipe with small holes drilled.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page I started to get these brown spots as the season and soil started to warm up. Temperatures under the plastic were reaching near 100 degrees.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Carefully added some really clean straw under the black mesh. My temperatures got back into the 80s where they belong.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page The irrigation system included a large tote, electric pump, and electronics in the box up front. For nutrients, I used ChemGro Cucumber which is a commercial formulation for soil or hydro.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Inside the box is the irrigation controller, RainBird soil moisture sensor, pump start relay, and electrical supplies.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page There are 4 grafted plants and 4 traditional plants. The fastest grower at this point was a traditional plant. In fact, at this time all plants were about equal. The grafted are nearest and the traditional are in the back. All of them get equal sun. The seed I used was a 67 Zuerner which was a seed melon containing very good genetics. All the plants are the 67 Zuerner. I wanted to see the best I could, what grafting gets for you in a head to head.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page My preseason soil test looked pretty good. Take note of the potassium levels in the soil.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page About this time in the early season I got my first tissue test. Have a look at the potassium. Even though it was at good levels in the soil, it was not getting to the plant. The plant was showing K deficiency. My second tissue test showed the same thing. I never figured it out. Even after I added a good amount of K into the nutrient solution. No clue why.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page It was about this time right here that they all put off their first female flower on the primary vine. All of them were in the 6-7 foot range. Things were perfect. I anxiously awaited the second female on each plant. It was the second flower that would be in the right area...they never happened. All my plants set the first then got all caught up again with the males. Ugh.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is a graft failure on a plant that was pollinated just day before. It had the largest female I had ever seen. I come home from work and this is what I see. It was on a C. ficifolia rootstock.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is the graft union. It didn't look all too bad.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page I put the slightest bit of pressure on the union and it popped right off. It was barely connected. This type of failure is not as common but does happen.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page This was a few days after pollination. You can now see the grafted plants in the front starting to do better than the traditional in the rear.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Well at this point the next females never showed up and it was time to dance with the ladies who brought ya. One grafted plant on the right never had a good set. It was eventually pulled.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page This turned out to be my biggest melon of the year. You wouldn't of thought it at the beginning. It was named Carnegie Melon.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Carnegie on July 17th.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Carnegie and Abby on August 9th.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here are the Melon Sisters. They are all natural or should I say, traditional. About this time of year Downey Mildew starts working in. It is the disease that will cut your season short around here. I tried to resist it the best I could but you can see it start to set in. It started on the traditional plants first. The Melon Sisters were 120 and 130 pounds. My other two traditional melons finished at 80 and 90 pounds. Good for eating but that's about all.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Turns out this is the last full shot I took of the season. The grafted plant on the left is very vigorous and taking over ground. Carnegie on the right is much slower growing and covers much less ground. The plant to the left finished at 180 pounds. It probably had 180 pounds of vine too. The 4 traditional plants totally stopped growing by now. No new vines. No new leaves.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is a picture of Carnegie's stump. Pretty modest but exactly what you want to see. It is a Rampart rootstock.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page A picture with their covers off. Grafted in the front, traditional in the back.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Towards the end of the season there were a huge number of culls. Finally the females showed up. Here is the game Abby and her friend played a lot. Its smash the culls on the utility pole. Good fun.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is my largest traditional melon. 130 pounds, it was real good eating. As you can see Downey Mildew wiped out the traditional plants. The grafts did well. They all received the same treatments.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page End of the season. We ended up eating the most of three melons. Two were left in the basement. Only Carnegie remained.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page All loaded up and ready to set off on a 427 mile trip to Raleigh and the NC State Fair.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Found this beauty of a melon right outside of Raleigh.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page The NC State Fair was a good time. Here is Abby again in the land of giants.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page First place melon grower, second place melon grower, and my 9th place melon.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Chris Kent's big pig melon. Had to be the widest melon ever. 315.5 pounds!   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Todd Dawson's awesome melon won by a half a pound over second place.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Me and my 191 pound melon.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page When we got home it was time to finish up on the season. Here are the two grafted stumps from the 180 (Valent, left) and the 191 (Rampart,right). There was an obvious size difference but size does not equate to weight. The vastly smaller plant and rootstock produced the larger melon.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page It was truly amazing how vigorous the one root system was. If I could of had a better melon on that plant it would of been very good.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is the larger watermelon crown. Again, all my plants were from the 67 Zuerner. The only difference was grafted or not and the rootstock type. After I pulled this one I did see an area of rot on the underside of the watermelon vine.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Here is the stump that produced Carnegie. It was perfect. The roots went right and the vine went left. A good graft union. But have a look at the tissue just on the watermelon side of the graft union. Do you see how its kind of swirled and non organized? Its this area that gets hurt by the pressure of the rootstock. That swirled area is the hypocotyl of the watermelon scion. My thought for some time now is to graft without the hypocotyl of the watermelon scion, thus eliminating this swirled area. Not sure if that technique would make grafting a sure thing or open another can of worms in another way. This picture shows a lot.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page This is my best traditional stump vs. my best grafted stump   Wednesday, January 3 View Page Well, what to do with the two watermelons in the basement. I cannot eat another bite of watermelon, I've had way too much. I cant even take the smell anymore. I guess I'll make some wine. The electric mixer did a great job. Just make sure you use a GFI protected outlet.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page I read that watermelon wine is not that good by itself. It is recommended to add another fruit to help it out. So on the left I added apple and on the right Concord grape juices. After the initial fermentation in larger container (which is a must) I eventually transferred it into these carboys.   Wednesday, January 3 View Page After a couple weeks I racked off the sediment and now it is ready for aging. I can tell right away why they don't make watermelon wine. Its really not that good but coming in at 14% alcohol it still works really well. I'm going to let it set about 6 months and see how things are then. If its still not what I am into then maybe I can find a still and make some melonshine! This season was great fun. I look forward to next year but I am unsure of how much longer after that. It took a pretty good effort to build this whole operation in my front yard I'd be pretty stupid to break it all down. I just don't enjoy doing the same thing over and over. Who knows, maybe I can diversify or do something new to keep things fresh. Cheers to all the melon heads out there!