Right now, my focus in the garden is to get my fall garden planted, while trying to stave off the squash bugs for long enough to harvest my winter squash and pumpkins.
We harvested our first watermelon last week, and while I had gotten confused and thought it was a Georgia Rattlesnake, as soon as Jonny cut it open, we could see that it was an orangeglo after all. We’ve eaten two of them now, and I think we’re getting better at determining when they’re ripe. For the record, neither of these had dry tendrils and had we waited for that, we would have probably waited too long.
Here are my notes:
August 12: Planted one bed of Russian red kale
August 15: in a flat, planted: rainbow chard, Decicco broccoli, purple sprouting broccoli, champion collards, lacinato kale
August 19: planted four brussel sprout and four cauliflower starts along with cherrybelle and french breakfast radish seeds
August 20: planted one bed with bull’s blood beets, arugula, rocky top lettuce mix, and red romaine picked a basket full of Kentucky pole beans
August 22: planted more chard and broccoli in flats
Recently an old fashioned gardening friend told me that garlic water sprayed on squash plants will deter squash bugs. I didn’t get to try out the tip this year because my squash had already been done in by the wicked things, but I thought I’d share. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time and just love it 🙂
I’m a little late posting…but here is my update 🙂
That watermelon is huge! It looks delicious. 🙂
That watermelon is so neat! I wondered what it was, scrolling through the photos, because it looked just like a watermelon until you cut it open. I’ve never seen one without the pink flesh inside before. What a treat! xo
Do you grow all those items from seeds or buy plants? Where so you buy plants?
Hi Ellen! Most things we grow from seed, but I do buy plant starts from our local farm stores sometimes.
That melon looks super YUM! We only had one watermelon make it when we lived in Virginia thanks to those darn squash bugs you mentioned. They were my fiercest enemy, let me tell you! I’m fighting them (for your garden) with you in spirit!
You garden is truly amazing! Love the watermelon’s color. Will have to try that next summer!
Your garden is so beautiful! What a great color of watermelon, and I enjoyed hearing about your fall veggies, I am hoping I didn’t wait to long, but I am about to plant some kale right now. 🙂
Oh my! That watermelon truly makes my mouth water. Very impressive!
I love the picture with the chicken getting in on the action too. So sweet.
Oh, yum! That melon looks so wonderful. Ours are still palm-size (definitely not ripe yet 😉 Everything is slow to grow this year with our record heat and drought. But it also makes each thing harvested that much more appreciated!
-Jaime
Erm, do you have to do anything special — join somewhere eg, as it says: “If you are participating in Garden Journal” — to be allowed to likn up. Or would this blogpost be allrigth? http://krydderuglen.blogspot.dk/2012/08/en-spndende-sensommerdag-exciting.html
You’re wlecome to delete this comment if it is stupid and/or not allowed to link like this.
Wow, I never saw a yellow watermelon before. It it just wonderful and so big. And then sharing with the hen :). My Owlets would totally do the same.
Ginny, I am curious how you will store your produce for the winter. Do you have a root cellar? Will you can most of it?
Hi Barbara! I don’t have a good plan. We’ve never had more than we can eat quickly enough that storage isn’t an issue. We don’t have a cellar (but I want one!) We don’t have a chest freezer. Right now there are three boxes of (dirty) potatoes on the floor in my kitchen. I don’t think we will have too terribly much to store though. I am thinking that I may end up blanching and freezing some green beans. The winter squash will just go in the pantry. I had hoped to can tomatoes this year for the first time, but the early groundhog damage resulted in us not having more tomatoes than we could eat.
The melon looks good!
orange???? never seen an orangeglo before!!! (love the chicken photo!!) I’m doing a terrible job of figuring out the melon harevest thing this year—-planted some miniatures, so they ARE small; so far, I’ve only hit one right—-if I wait too long, they split open, too soon and they are just white inside; I’ve got a handful more out side—hoping to get something right!!!
Cool melon! I have got to figure out when our sugar babies are ripe. This is the first year there is actually more than one! We had one grow last year and then we cut it open too early 🙁 It’s hard! I’ll get a journal up today if I can…
It is hard! I can’t tell you how many white melons we have cut open in the past!
My goodness, how much did that thing weigh? I’ve never seen an orangeglo melon before, I wonder if I could get them to grow here in the alps?
Your garden is huge, It must take a lot of work!
I don’t know, but it was heavy! I don’t know if that variety would grow in the alps–It needs about 90 days to mature I think?
Oh, I LOVE that last photo with the chicken. Probably the only thing more enjoyable than eating the melon yourself, is watching the birds (and in my case, the horse, too) have at the rinds!
Wow! Was the watermelon good? My children would love to try something like that!
Yes, it was really good! I should have mentioned that!
LOVE the melon!
that watermelon looks tasty! is it much different tasting from a more traditional watermelon? we picked up a few new to us melons at the farmers market a few weeks ago… out of this world good. i grew up with just plain old red water melon, cantaloupe and honeydew. there are so many more kinds of melons available now.
No, I think it tastes like watermelon in general, but some say it has a “tropical” flavor.