Oh happy day! A baby watermelon appeared today.

Ruth n Jersey

Ruth n Jersey

Well-known Member
Location
Northern New Jersey
My garden is doing fine. I have to water daily because it's been so hot and dry. We have had a lot of humidity and my tomatoes aren't happy with that. We've had a lot of peas ,lettuce,and my new veggie this year,Swiss chard. I picked it young so it was tender enough to put in a salad and it was good cooked. I think it will be a keeper for next years garden
The egg plant is growing nicely which is another new addition to my garden.
I had such luck with cantaloupe last year I decided to try watermelon which is my favorite summertime treat.
Today I was happy to see the start of a little melon,actually there were a few.
It seems a bit late but I planted the small round melon type so hopefully there will be enough time for them to mature.. The stores around here call them personal melons so I guess the hubby has to grow his own if he wants to eat one.
I really prefer the old type with the big back seeds but I'm not sure even I could eat that much.watermellon..JPG
 

That is one of the things I miss doing since I moved from my house. I loved to garden and canned jars of food for the winter. My father taught me to garden and to can. He loved Swiss Chard too. I never see the big watermelons with the black seeds anymore. Miss those too. I think they had more taste. Thank you for sharing your garden!
 

Bonnie said:
Love the garden pictures too! ... My new apartment life has me missing my old garden. It kept me so busy.
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Are you in a complex? Is there any chance some of the other tenants would be interested in a communal garden? If so...maybe see if the landlord could have a spot dug up for one?
 
@Kaila, here is my watermelon update as well as a photo of my eggplant and peppers. The garden is doing well. I put some old screen wire under the melons because they were laying in wet leaves and I also put netting on it to keep the little varmints away. Now that my watermelon is growing I'm wondering how I will know when to pick it. I never grew it before. Do I thump it? knock on it? weigh it? I wish I could plug it like they did in the grocery store back in the 50s but I'm sure that wouldn't work.
 

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Ruth n Jersey said:
@Kaila, here is my watermelon update as well as a photo of my eggplant and peppers. The garden is doing well. I put some old screen wire under the melons because they were laying in wet leaves and I also put netting on it to keep the little varmints away. Now that my watermelon is growing I'm wondering how I will know when to pick it. I never grew it before. Do I thump it? knock on it? weigh it? I wish I could plug it like they did in the grocery store back in the 50s but I'm sure that wouldn't work.
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When the underside of the melon turns from white to yellow usually signals it's ripe and ready to pick. Another way to know if if the watermelon is ready to pick is if it breaks away easily from the vine when twisted.

I grew cantaloupes one year. They were flourishing and had many that were not quite ripe to pick. I checked them every day. Then, one morning, I went out to check and low and behold...a bear knew they were ripe and ate every single one of them! lol I haven't grown them since. Bears are so good at eating our grapes as soon as they are ripe too, so we are constantly checking them to get our fair share of them.
 
In addition to the tips that Gemma gave, another way to guess the maturity and the readiness for picking, is the color and pattern of the skin,
as well as the small part of the stem that joins it to the vine/plant, becomes visibly dry/brown/cracking. That would make it weaker, as Gemma said; if it breaks off very easily, it's ready. (That would go for the eggplant and pepper, as well)

Try not to wait for an animal to signal you that it was ready for the picking! :giggle::sneaky::rolleyes::oops:

All of your photo's look terrific, @Ruth n Jersey !!
 


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