Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Melons and more Melons

The growing season has been both good and bad. Weather here in North Carolina has been hot and very little rain. Tomato's are starting to come on and we have had lots of cucumbers. Summer squash was doing well...But then all the plants just stopped producing and are the plants are dead!
But the melons are every where! Lots of volunteer's and  the "Moon and Stars" watermelons are in great shape.This is the only melon I planted from seed and are in a raised bed (4' X 8') and are spilling over the side. Weeds are not much of a problem as the plants are so heavy they shade them out for the most part.
One of the nice things about the "Moon and Stars" is that the plants are Indeterminate and the melons will not all ripen at the same time and at last count there were 14 melons coming on!
The hard part is keeping the Deer and Crows out of the bed!

So I am building a PVC structure to place over the bed that will be covered with chicken wire and is high enough that they can not reach the melons.


But I also have melons in other place's on the homestead.

In the tomato bed.

And in the flower beds!


And even where last years compost pile was!

The reason that the tomato beds and the flower beds have the melons is because I used a lot of Worm cast in the beds and the Worms do not eat seeds. And the seeds ended up in the beds. Once they got started, I couldn't get myself to pull the plants!

And talking about the Worms!



Here are a couple of hand fulls from right out of the Worm beds!

And the last picture is of a hard working member of the garden team!

This young Lady has been pulling her own weight by ridding the garden of grasshoppers by the score! Now normally I get rid of spiders (I have a bad reaction to spider bites!) , But she is where I can see her and make sure I stay clear of her. I even toss her a grasshopper now and then!
So that is the Melon Report. Hope yours are doing as well!
Tom

1 comment:

  1. you are lucky to get melons to grow like that! I grew up in TN and our melons hardly ever did well. I loved those spiders too. They are so pretty and creative. We called them "writing spiders" for the zigzag they make on their web. Thank you for visiting my blog and for the comment on Grapevine! I had no idea! Thank you so much for answering a question I've had in my mind for some time!

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