"We paid for blood!"
Date: Monday, September 22, 2014
Every year I dedicate much of my resources, thought, and energy to growing melons. Anyone who has tasted a homegrown watermelon or cantaloupe understands the incentive. It is a flavor and texture that is seldom found in a store, rarely served in a restaurant. Because they have always been a special part of the garden, I have been saving all my melon growing results for this post.
Watermelons
Watermelons are a pain to grow, but if picked correctly are wonders to behold. The flesh is firm, sweet, and juicy. They come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes, most of which are not commercially available.
Watermelons have some of the biggest differences between home grown and store bought varieties, which makes growing them so appealing. There are many reasons why store melons are so bland and one of them is the difficulty in determining ripeness. Watermelons cease ripening after being pulled which makes picking correctly a crucial component of fruit quality. Generally speaking there are three good indicators of fruit ripeness. The first is drying of the tendril closest to the fruit. Tendrils are the twirling stems vines use to latch onto and climb up objects. Once the entire length of the tendril dries out it is a good time to pick.
The color of the part of the rind that rests on the ground is initially a bright white. When the fruit ripens it becomes a cream or yellow color.
The last indication is the most subtle and cannot be shown in pictures. It is the sound the melon makes when slapped on the side. The sound of an unripe fruit has been described as "metallic," "tinny," or having a higher pitch. A ripe melon sounds dull, hollow, a thud-like sound. I pick a melon when I notice all three signs of ripeness at the same time. The results using this method have been good, however other factors sometimes force fruits to be picked prematurely. The results of my harvests are below:
The first few Mellow Golds suffered cracking, and the rest were unable to fully ripen before the plant died. Surprisingly, the unripe fruit was still sweet enough to eat, so it wasn't a catastrophe.
"White-fleshed watermelons were common in the 1800's, but due to corporate agriculture, these genetic treasures are about to be lost. That is a shame, as white-fleshed varieties date back hundreds of years and were developed in Africa from wild strains." - taken from rareseeds.com
Coming in at ~21 lbs is the largest melon of the year, the Orangeglo. Sweet, colorful, with a nice thin rind, there's not much to complain about. This fruit barely made it as the plant was almost dead by the time I picked it.
Orange Tendersweet. Again, not fully ripened because the plant died but sweet enough to eat. Despite some success, there is obviously an underlying problem of the plants dying before their time. Typically, the vines will look very healthy until the fruits are close to ripening, at which point they suddenly collapse. The cause is unknown, but the most likely culprits are two types of wilt.
Sudden wilt seems to fit the description best. Indeed, the soil does have poor drainage, despite my best efforts. I was hoping the drip system would resolve any problems of overwatering, but digging up the soil at the roots of the now dead melons revealed it to be very damp and dense. I have big plans to fix this problem for next year and if it doesn't work then I'm out of ideas. Muskmelons
Cousins of the watermelon, muskmelons require similar growing conditions. Home growns are also clearly superior to their store cousins. The nice part is ripe fruits are easier to identify.
New Melon fruits are small and tasty. The flesh is sweet and has a strong fragrance when ripe. There isn't much flesh but the plant has high yield and good resistance to disease.
Yubari Melon. I'm surprised I did not take a picture of the inside, but if anyone was wondering it looks basically like a cantaloupe. Good, but could have been sweeter if not for the litany of foliar diseases. The amount of sunlight and heat the leaves get determines the sweetness of the fruits.
Shizuoka Melon. Tiny and not very sweet. While my watermelons suffered from sudden wilting, my muskmelons mostly suffered from leaf damage similar to the Yubari. Damaged leaves means less sweetness.
Unnamed Japanese melon. These melons are an enigma. Unlike the others, it does not show any signs of ripeness and takes much longer to mature. So far, picking these melons has been hit or miss.
The melons were a mixed bag of successes and failures. I am always thinking of ways to improve my garden and all things considered I am convinced that the heart of all my problems lies in the soil. The yearly planting of curcubit crops has built up soilborne diseases and at the same time depleted it of nutrients. The heavy clay nature of the soil retains too much moisture and is dense and unaerated. Until now improving the scale of the soil was too expensive, however with the discovery of the LA free compost program I have already started the replacement of the existing soil with mostly compost. This will be a ridiculous amount of effort, but if it works prepare to see amazing results next year. Until that time, stay tuned for future updates.
Watermelons are a pain to grow, but if picked correctly are wonders to behold. The flesh is firm, sweet, and juicy. They come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes, most of which are not commercially available.
Watermelons have some of the biggest differences between home grown and store bought varieties, which makes growing them so appealing. There are many reasons why store melons are so bland and one of them is the difficulty in determining ripeness. Watermelons cease ripening after being pulled which makes picking correctly a crucial component of fruit quality. Generally speaking there are three good indicators of fruit ripeness. The first is drying of the tendril closest to the fruit. Tendrils are the twirling stems vines use to latch onto and climb up objects. Once the entire length of the tendril dries out it is a good time to pick.
The color of the part of the rind that rests on the ground is initially a bright white. When the fruit ripens it becomes a cream or yellow color.
The last indication is the most subtle and cannot be shown in pictures. It is the sound the melon makes when slapped on the side. The sound of an unripe fruit has been described as "metallic," "tinny," or having a higher pitch. A ripe melon sounds dull, hollow, a thud-like sound. I pick a melon when I notice all three signs of ripeness at the same time. The results using this method have been good, however other factors sometimes force fruits to be picked prematurely. The results of my harvests are below:
The first few Mellow Golds suffered cracking, and the rest were unable to fully ripen before the plant died. Surprisingly, the unripe fruit was still sweet enough to eat, so it wasn't a catastrophe.
"White-fleshed watermelons were common in the 1800's, but due to corporate agriculture, these genetic treasures are about to be lost. That is a shame, as white-fleshed varieties date back hundreds of years and were developed in Africa from wild strains." - taken from rareseeds.com
Coming in at ~21 lbs is the largest melon of the year, the Orangeglo. Sweet, colorful, with a nice thin rind, there's not much to complain about. This fruit barely made it as the plant was almost dead by the time I picked it.
Orange Tendersweet. Again, not fully ripened because the plant died but sweet enough to eat. Despite some success, there is obviously an underlying problem of the plants dying before their time. Typically, the vines will look very healthy until the fruits are close to ripening, at which point they suddenly collapse. The cause is unknown, but the most likely culprits are two types of wilt.
Sudden wilt seems to fit the description best. Indeed, the soil does have poor drainage, despite my best efforts. I was hoping the drip system would resolve any problems of overwatering, but digging up the soil at the roots of the now dead melons revealed it to be very damp and dense. I have big plans to fix this problem for next year and if it doesn't work then I'm out of ideas. Muskmelons
Cousins of the watermelon, muskmelons require similar growing conditions. Home growns are also clearly superior to their store cousins. The nice part is ripe fruits are easier to identify.
New Melon fruits are small and tasty. The flesh is sweet and has a strong fragrance when ripe. There isn't much flesh but the plant has high yield and good resistance to disease.
Yubari Melon. I'm surprised I did not take a picture of the inside, but if anyone was wondering it looks basically like a cantaloupe. Good, but could have been sweeter if not for the litany of foliar diseases. The amount of sunlight and heat the leaves get determines the sweetness of the fruits.
Shizuoka Melon. Tiny and not very sweet. While my watermelons suffered from sudden wilting, my muskmelons mostly suffered from leaf damage similar to the Yubari. Damaged leaves means less sweetness.
Unnamed Japanese melon. These melons are an enigma. Unlike the others, it does not show any signs of ripeness and takes much longer to mature. So far, picking these melons has been hit or miss.
The melons were a mixed bag of successes and failures. I am always thinking of ways to improve my garden and all things considered I am convinced that the heart of all my problems lies in the soil. The yearly planting of curcubit crops has built up soilborne diseases and at the same time depleted it of nutrients. The heavy clay nature of the soil retains too much moisture and is dense and unaerated. Until now improving the scale of the soil was too expensive, however with the discovery of the LA free compost program I have already started the replacement of the existing soil with mostly compost. This will be a ridiculous amount of effort, but if it works prepare to see amazing results next year. Until that time, stay tuned for future updates.
Date: Friday, August 15, 2014
The garden looks like crap.
The tomatoes look okay, I guess. I'm glad we got that out of the way. It's amazing how much things can change in just a month. Fortunately, despite the appearance I have been regularly picking things in decent abundance. I'll get to an analysis of my garden soon but first, pictures!
The first harvest that required a box.
Here the plants are just starting to set fruit. There are some beans, squash, corn, peppers, soybeans, jalapenos, eggplant, Japanese cucumber, and lemon cucumber.
Something got mixed up in the labeling of my tomatoes and I ended up planting some anonymous variety instead of the Green Tiger I was hoping for. Now I have an extra beefsteak variety. There have been several mix-ups this year. I should remember this.
This has got to be a record for total poundage of tomatoes picked at one time. The crazier part is they were being picked throughout the week. Those have been my pickings up to this point. I'm sure I've already crested the peak and it's a hard dive from here. Many of my plants are on their way out or have stopped producing. In fact, many of my plants are being actively killed.
The big patch of brown at the beginning of this post is this dead watermelon. The week before I noticed a curling of the leaves which is usually a sign of water stress. At that point I knew what had happened, and there was nothing I could do about it. After the plant died I decided to dig up the roots to confirm my suspicions.
I knew it. Ant have been eating away at the root structure. No roots means no water, which means leaves start to show water stress. It's hard to see, but this is a pic of the main taproot and it is covered with holes and burrows. Plus, when I dug it up hundreds of ants came up with it and scattered. I had thought they might leave my melons alone since they've never invaded them before, but I was wrong. Fortunately, I think I finally found a solution.
This is the Terro Ant Trap. 1436 reviews at 4.5/5 stars has got to mean something. It apparently takes out entire nests, using some kind of food solution laced with borax. The borax poisons the ants slowly enough so that they take the food back to the nest, at which point it gets distributed all the way down to the queen. Is it weird to say that I'm super excited to use this? If this stuff works, this could mean the end of my main pest problem. Ants also promote aphid populations by working with them symbiotically. If I get rid of one, hopefully it will remove the other.
The other main problem I have is disease. Though usually not as deadly as ants, disease lowers plant yield and fruit quality. Here is one of my muskmelon leaves harboring some kind of black mold, powdery mildew, and what looks like anthracnose or downey mildew.
This is my lemon cucumber plant, and no, the leaves are not supposed to be this color. At first I thought I overfertilized, since yellowing of the leaves is a sign of nitrogen burn. However, I haven't fertilized in a month or so and new leaves still turn out this way. Additionally, when the leaves turn color it does so in a spore-like manner. Hundreds of tiny yellow dots appear and gradually get bigger, like some bacterial culture. No one seems to have any effective treatment for diseases once they infect. Instead, preventative measures are always given as the best option. Some things are impractical like rotating crops, soil fumigation, constant fungicidal spraying, or getting disease resistant plants. Other things like reducing humidity and moisture I've tried to do by replacing overhead watering with a drip system. What I haven't really considered until now was strengthening the plant's own immune system. This is done by building up the soil, something I considered too expensive until now.
I have had two major discoveries these past few weeks. One was the Terro, the other is that LA county gives away FREE mulch and compost. ALL THE TIME. It's just sitting there, stocked every week at 11 locations throughout Los Angeles. In the past being able to acquire enough amendment to adequately fertilize my garden space would have been simply too costly. My soil square footage is too large and the quality too poor to be practically remedied by the likes of Home Depot or Lowes. This is why the free mulch program is such a big deal. The pic above is one such location. For being free it's very good compost. Not only a great source of humus (broken down organic matter), you can also tell that it is extremely bio-active. The compost was piping hot as I piled it into bags, a sign of intense microorganism activity. One downside is that it stunk. The compost uses greenwaste as well as animal feces from the city zoo. This has made my car smell literally like shit. The compost is still a little chunky and there are small pieces of contaminants like plastic in it. Still, I can't complain. I plan to eventually replace most of my growing soil with this stuff. This means a lot of trips and a really bad smelling car.
I already spread the compost around the base of my dragonfruit, which is doing amazing. So far I've counted at least 20 fruits growing, an unprecedented amount considering last year I only got one and the years before that nothing. I never imagined it, but soon I'll have more dragonfruit than I know what to do with.
Another plant doing way better than expected is the hojiso, which looked like it was struggling at first. They're doing great and have beautiful multicolored leaves. The underside is purple while the top is green. Every garden brings new challenges and this season was no exception. The plants have seen great success in some areas and others less so. Each time I get closer to the perfect garden, yet it still remains elusive. I consider my harvests mediocre compared to the potential I see when plants are at their healthiest. Someday I'll get this down. And when that day come it will be glorious.
The tomatoes look okay, I guess. I'm glad we got that out of the way. It's amazing how much things can change in just a month. Fortunately, despite the appearance I have been regularly picking things in decent abundance. I'll get to an analysis of my garden soon but first, pictures!
The first harvest that required a box.
Here the plants are just starting to set fruit. There are some beans, squash, corn, peppers, soybeans, jalapenos, eggplant, Japanese cucumber, and lemon cucumber.
Something got mixed up in the labeling of my tomatoes and I ended up planting some anonymous variety instead of the Green Tiger I was hoping for. Now I have an extra beefsteak variety. There have been several mix-ups this year. I should remember this.
This has got to be a record for total poundage of tomatoes picked at one time. The crazier part is they were being picked throughout the week. Those have been my pickings up to this point. I'm sure I've already crested the peak and it's a hard dive from here. Many of my plants are on their way out or have stopped producing. In fact, many of my plants are being actively killed.
The big patch of brown at the beginning of this post is this dead watermelon. The week before I noticed a curling of the leaves which is usually a sign of water stress. At that point I knew what had happened, and there was nothing I could do about it. After the plant died I decided to dig up the roots to confirm my suspicions.
I knew it. Ant have been eating away at the root structure. No roots means no water, which means leaves start to show water stress. It's hard to see, but this is a pic of the main taproot and it is covered with holes and burrows. Plus, when I dug it up hundreds of ants came up with it and scattered. I had thought they might leave my melons alone since they've never invaded them before, but I was wrong. Fortunately, I think I finally found a solution.
This is the Terro Ant Trap. 1436 reviews at 4.5/5 stars has got to mean something. It apparently takes out entire nests, using some kind of food solution laced with borax. The borax poisons the ants slowly enough so that they take the food back to the nest, at which point it gets distributed all the way down to the queen. Is it weird to say that I'm super excited to use this? If this stuff works, this could mean the end of my main pest problem. Ants also promote aphid populations by working with them symbiotically. If I get rid of one, hopefully it will remove the other.
The other main problem I have is disease. Though usually not as deadly as ants, disease lowers plant yield and fruit quality. Here is one of my muskmelon leaves harboring some kind of black mold, powdery mildew, and what looks like anthracnose or downey mildew.
This is my lemon cucumber plant, and no, the leaves are not supposed to be this color. At first I thought I overfertilized, since yellowing of the leaves is a sign of nitrogen burn. However, I haven't fertilized in a month or so and new leaves still turn out this way. Additionally, when the leaves turn color it does so in a spore-like manner. Hundreds of tiny yellow dots appear and gradually get bigger, like some bacterial culture. No one seems to have any effective treatment for diseases once they infect. Instead, preventative measures are always given as the best option. Some things are impractical like rotating crops, soil fumigation, constant fungicidal spraying, or getting disease resistant plants. Other things like reducing humidity and moisture I've tried to do by replacing overhead watering with a drip system. What I haven't really considered until now was strengthening the plant's own immune system. This is done by building up the soil, something I considered too expensive until now.
I have had two major discoveries these past few weeks. One was the Terro, the other is that LA county gives away FREE mulch and compost. ALL THE TIME. It's just sitting there, stocked every week at 11 locations throughout Los Angeles. In the past being able to acquire enough amendment to adequately fertilize my garden space would have been simply too costly. My soil square footage is too large and the quality too poor to be practically remedied by the likes of Home Depot or Lowes. This is why the free mulch program is such a big deal. The pic above is one such location. For being free it's very good compost. Not only a great source of humus (broken down organic matter), you can also tell that it is extremely bio-active. The compost was piping hot as I piled it into bags, a sign of intense microorganism activity. One downside is that it stunk. The compost uses greenwaste as well as animal feces from the city zoo. This has made my car smell literally like shit. The compost is still a little chunky and there are small pieces of contaminants like plastic in it. Still, I can't complain. I plan to eventually replace most of my growing soil with this stuff. This means a lot of trips and a really bad smelling car.
I already spread the compost around the base of my dragonfruit, which is doing amazing. So far I've counted at least 20 fruits growing, an unprecedented amount considering last year I only got one and the years before that nothing. I never imagined it, but soon I'll have more dragonfruit than I know what to do with.
Another plant doing way better than expected is the hojiso, which looked like it was struggling at first. They're doing great and have beautiful multicolored leaves. The underside is purple while the top is green. Every garden brings new challenges and this season was no exception. The plants have seen great success in some areas and others less so. Each time I get closer to the perfect garden, yet it still remains elusive. I consider my harvests mediocre compared to the potential I see when plants are at their healthiest. Someday I'll get this down. And when that day come it will be glorious.
