2008 melons...help!
 

So, last year the muskmelons Passport and Touchdown did very well, Ananas not so well. Watermelons Yellow Moon and Stars produced one lovely large fruit.

Now it is 2008...we want to go for smaller watermelons and greater yield (anyone recommend Blacktail Mountain? Sugar Baby? Others that fit this bill?)

And the SSE catalog shows loads of muskmelons with great descriptions - but way too many! Was pondering Charentais, perhaps Nutmeg, Hanover or Eden's Gem....but it is quite confusing!

Looking for feedback on the various melons in the SSE catalog that people have tried.

Watermelon:
I've grown Blacktail Mountain and Sugar Baby. I like them both. I'm keen for success with Golden Midget which has eluded me so far. In general, I find watermelons frustrating as I have a hard time determining maturity!

Muskmelon:
Nutmeg is a favourite. Lovely handfuls of spicy sweetness. Charentais I haven't grown but I ate a lot of them when I lived in France. Delicious. Collective Farm Woman is also very good.

A related question: Am I crazy to be considering trying a mixture of sand, peat moss, and compost and no soil?

I've grown both Blacktail Mountain and Sugar Baby but have never had much success with watermelon. Last year I grew Will's Sugar but only a few were ever pollinated. The bees seems to prefer the cukes next to the melons much more. This year I'll be trying Early Hanover because of the Richmond, Va. connection--I'm in Va. Beach. If these don't do well, I'll probably use that space for something else next year. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for at least a few good melons. Last year Jenny Lind gave me a few but I'd like a little better production. I prefer the green fleshed melons so I hope they do well.

[quote=feldon30;84736]A related question: Am I crazy to be considering trying a mixture of sand, peat moss, and compost and no soil?[/quote]

No your not Morgan as I have said before some of the best tasting melons in the world are grown in sandy soil.
have you ever had a melon from Midkiff or Pecos Texas?
The are some of the best in Texas.

I would leave out the peat and just do sand and compost.
Melons need water but they don't like to sit in it.;)

Worth

I grow blacktail mountain, which is the best tasting watermelon I ever grew. Unfortunately production is low.
Melon: tried many varieties: the best is unavailable (at least in 2007:streits freiland grungenetzt, an old German variety) from commercial sources, available is another very good melon: petit gris de rennes;Jenny Lind is also very tasty,as is noir des carmes and 'de Bellegarde'.But my climate could be totally different,
Frank

Here in my zone 4 I grow: Charentais (excellent taste, great yields)
Petite Gris De Renne: Excellent taste and yield.

I have grown Blacktail Mountain which had great yields, grew to a nice size, at around 8 to 10 pounds but for some reason it never got completely ripe for me on the inside. The flesh stayed more of a pinky red and didnt taste like it had much flavor. All indications were the melons were ripe when picked. Maybe you would have better luck in your growing season. What I didnt get was I can grow Orangeglo Watermelon with no problem ripening (85 day's) but BTM (70 day's)) didnt quite get their. Both set out as 2 week old transplants. By the way, Orangeglo Tastes terrific and sets terrific yields and has very healthy vines in my zone 4.

Forgot to mention another great variety of Watermelon for me is Cream of Saskatchewan. It is a white fleshed variety (80 day's) and gets about 8 to 10#. Very tasty. Yields are good, but not as good as the others.

Cream of Saskatchewan, hands down (me biased?...nay), Petite Sweet and Petite Yellow are nice and can do well in oversized barrels. Am trying Blacktail Mt and Orangeglo this year along with Early Moonbeam, Kapuler's dehybridized version of Yellow Doll.

Sakata's Sweet does well in containers--good production of smaller melons; Charentais made me a melon convert; Noir des Carmes and Petit Gris de Rennes can do well in more marginal conditions (no artifical irrigation in my case). Trying Oka and Montreal Market this year so thoughts and preferences are likely to change. :>)

Jennifer

Orangeglo is delicious and productive for me but definitely not a small melon. Ali Baba fits that bill as well.

Blacktail Mountain is small but for me didn't have as good a flavor or production as the other two.

Craig, Charentais is a favorite of mine. Unfortunately, it was mostly a bust for me last year because of the extreme amounts of rain we received. Even in the raised beds, it was just too much. In a typical Texas summer, they do just fine, though.

I've tried quite a few varieties of muskmelon here the last few years and had mixed results for various reasons, including some disappointments with some of the highly touted varieties noted above. The one variety that was exceptionally good in both flavor and productivity for me was Green Machine, a variety bred by Merlyn Niedens, I think. Of course my growing conditions here are slightly different than yours...

As for watermelon, I always have disease problems and get little if any useful production, so I've given up with them. Someday I'd like to taste a Moon and Stars, but I'll never be able to grow them, so for now it's just a dream...

In two years of Blacktail Mountain, it was very prolific both years with 8-12 lb fruit. Most did ripen; overripening was a problem because I had not figured out when to pick. First year flavor was better because the rains came just before ripening time the second year. I am growing BTM this year.

Sugar Baby and Sweet Siberian did not do well for me. I think they just too small and either ripened and split or never did ripen and stayed quite bland.

Orangeglo was a very pleasant surprise but not in the small melon category. It was the sweetest, largest watermelon I have grown. In two hills of 5 seeds each hill, I harvested five melons over 40 pounds and seven melons between 20 and 30 lbs. Another several from 15 to 20 lbs later in the season that did not quite ripen fully, but were still pretty good.

Muskmelon varieties I have had good harvest results include Golden Gopher and Pride of Wisconsin.

This year I am adding Wilson Sweet to the watermelon list. Oregon Delicious, Sakata Sweet and Sugar Salmon will possibly join GG and PoW. I have room for three or four muskmelon varieties as I till up my yard for more garden space.

I grew Golden Gopher several years ago. Very nice sweet flavor IMO. Charentais and Petit Gris de Rennes are a very tasty varieties as well. The year I grew these two side-by-side, Charentais ripened earlier and seemed to be a heavier producer.
I grew Edens Gem one year. It was an early ripener with good production....sweet and juicy. It's a small melon....about softball sized.
This year I'm getting my melon seed from Fedco seeds. I'm trying Golden Gopher(again), Pride of Wisconsin, Rocky Ford Green Flesh, and Schoon's Hardshell.

I've grown Evans Sweet two years now. It's a nice sized melon with green flesh and a salmon tint to the seed cavity. It's listed in the SSE yearbook. Anyway, my family likes it enough that I don't plant another.

George