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There are several ways to tell when a watermelon is getting close to being ripe. the first thing is that little curly Q that forms near the stem of the melon. When that turns brown, it is getting close, when I notice that, I start thumping the melon. A dull thump means it's not ready, but a hollow thumb means it should be picked within a week or so. A lot of it is trial by error but after you do it for a while, you can tell the difference.
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When I'm getting melons earlier in the season I never worry about doing that but as it gets later, I do it just to give the melons a better chance of ripening.
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We'll see if it gets close we may have to give that try for sure. Last night we had low of 41 hear at our house, other places nearby had upper 30s! That was way colder than forecasted. But the next 10 days on KSL show us staying in the low 50s so we'll likely be upper 40s at the coldest. Its way too early to frost just yet! Fingers are crossed for another month of good growing before we throw in the towel on this season!
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It was 57 here two nights in a row but last night it was 67*. Got almost 70 green beans out of our garden and picked 9 buttercup squash. Spent the day cutting them up and blanching them plus doing our last batched of bottled salmon for the year. Grapes are getting sweeter now and peaches are starting to ripen. Saw our first blossom on our cucumbers yesterday, hope it isn't too late. How is Jeff doing?
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we stayed pretty warm last night with that cloud cover as well - 57* so the house wasn't as cool this morning.
Did you get rain yesterday - we got less than 1/10th between last night and this AM, we hoped for bit more, but we'll take any we can get.
I picked enough green beans for our dinner tonight. I could see a lot of smaller ones hat just weren't a ripe as we we'd like. So maybe in a week or so we'll get few more. We're thinking we need more plants next year so we can put some in the freezer.
I also picked several cukes and squash, a roma tomato.
Here are today's pics - hopefully those melons will make it to their full (small) size, a couple are pretty close. You can se in the one pic cabbage pic the new sprouts starting from the already harvested plant - of course I won't have enough time to get any of it to full sized, but I never knew the plants would even do that.
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We got a few sprinkles overnight that same day but that was it.
[crazy]Did not think the cantaloupe was going to produce anything this year but after moving a few vines I found one that was hiding from me[crazy]. Starting to see more blooms on my cukes, if this continues maybe we will get a few this year, fingers crossed. I need to go out and pick the green beans in a few minutes and take a look for more zucchini that I missed yesterday, those thing sure grow fast. Found one I missed the other day that was as dark as the buttercup. Between the zucchini and the yellow squash we are picking 6 to 10 every other day.
Your garden is looking really nice, pretty amazing about the cabbage.
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Given the summer that we've had we aren't too disappointed in what the garden has produced this year. There's always an improvement to be tried next year but that's just learning how to garden best in our climate. Wish those tomatoes would really start turning red soon.
Next week the temps will drop a bit , and all the physical therapy appts are first thing in the AM so Annie and I will walk the path along the river while Jeff is inside.
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I agree, same here, considering this is my first try at growing a garden in a box, I'm happy with the results but I'll for sure make some changes next year. I have had the same issue with tomatoes and one thing I can tell you is, cut back on the water a little and they will ripen quicker. As long as they are getting plenty of water they will keep producing vines and tomatoes but as soon as they notice there is less water, they will stop growing and the tomatoes will get ripe. I learned that from OldCoot, his plants were small but they were producing more tomatoes than my bigger plants. With most vegetables the more water, the more they produce but not tomatoes, seems like just the opposite happens[crazy].
If you are walking by a river with annie you should take a pole and some lures along with you and try and catch some fish[  ], I know you haven't been out in a while.
Here are some new pics from my garden, got 87 green beans, from the size of them I must have missed some the last time I picked them.
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Believe me I'm tempted, but then I'd have to carry stuff with me, so I just look but haven't seen any fish. And I'm mainly trying to get in some walking exercise. Its just not been in cards for us this summer with everything going on here.
Jeff had me weigh his largest watermelon and it was 2 lbs 9 3/8 oz. So its getting there for sure. I may start restricting the water that about mid-September just because picking green ones to ripen up later never really works out for us.
Your garden is really looking good.
Oh and our those tiles on our back patio are called New Tech Wood. They have quite an assortment of colors to choose from online. You'll likely want something more in the brown colors to go with your house color.
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Glad to hear your watermelons are getting some weight to them, mine seems to be stalling at the moment, not sure if it has been the heat or what but they don't seem to be growing much, if any[  ]. Last night was the warmest night we have had for almost a month, it never got below 74 degrees, likely because of the cloud cover we had but at least the sun isn't beating down on us today. Sounds like we are getting a cool down later this week, maybe some rain. We did get a few sprinkles a little while ago but it did not amount to anything. If you two wants some grapes, they are ready to pick.
Thanks for the info on your back patio tiles, I'll have to take some time and look them up been busy on other projects.
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Seems like the melon we've been weighing is gaining ~9 oz every two days. Yesterday it weighed in at 3lb 15 5/8oz, so probably will pick this one this weekend.
Last night we really didn't cool off too much, low was only 61, but we too are expected to really cool off next week. of course we like the water rain brings but on flip side, we hate the cloud cover as it messes with our solar. August was so dry we had our highest output in 5 years.
Hard to pass on those yummy grapes, but if its okay, we'll have to wait a bit as we have a lot other fruits to be eaten right now.
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What kind of scale do have that measures weights that small? Picked two our our melons today, the vine was dieing on one of them and one the other one it wasn't looking much better because the leaves were drying up, so that vine was likely dying too. Not sure how I could weigh them though, my guess is that they are less than 5 lbs[ ].
Little cooler here last night, got down to 69 degrees, seems to be much cooler today, so far. Haven't seen my electric bill for aug yet but we are hoping for higher output as well but I don't have anything to compare it to, because this is our first solar generation year, I just hope it is higher than it was in July.
No problem on the grapes they will be here for a while still. They are a little bigger this year, likely because they are fewer in number. Almost reached the 100 green bean count today, wasn't sure it was going to do that well this year, because of fewer plants. Got a batch of peaches in the freeze dryer right now, they are coming on pretty good now.
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Its a digital kitchen scale (pic attached) Today it weighed 4lb 9 3/4oz. We weighed a similar sized one at grocery store today it weighed 4lbs 12oz so Jeff said he's picking it tomorrow or Sunday.
For fun, I also weighed a cantaloupe it was over 3 lbs . We read if the vines start drying out, dyeing back it's definitely time to pick them. Our vines are still a strong, vibrant green.
We were 60* last night. Seemed a bit warm for us to start the day, but I know for you it was welcomed relief . Next week we have couple days where our highs are only in the 60s and the lows in the lower 40s - that getting a little scary since we tend to be cooler than forecasted but if we survive those days/nights it does rebound to more safe temps by the end of next week. [crazy]
I cut back the watering on my bales hoping the tomatoes start ripening a little faster. Think this year we may can some as yummy tomato juice. they've really started ripening up lately but there are so many green ones I'd like if they would ripen before any frost hits to cut their season shorter.
I got about dozen green beans - they are growing well, all things considered, but I'd likely need to have more plants to get a greater amount at one time.
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OK, that's a cool thing to have for weighing fruit and vegetables. I weighed my largest watermelon yesterday and it was 2 tenths of a pound less than 5 lbs. I'm going to have to try something else next year, if I want them bigger than that.
My largest cantaloupe has stopped grow but the vine still looks good so I'll be leaving it on there for a while longer, it's about the same size as the one you have.
Overnight temp was 69 degrees but it just started raining, so that might drop the temps even more.
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Jeff said he thought he'd pick a watermelon today, but with cooler temps maybe he'll hold off for tomorrow. Seems these cooler/wet temps are causing him little more pain today, but we'll see.
Hey I made another recipe using the squash that Jeff liked even more than the last recipe I made, he even had seconds of it. I'll get it typed up later to post it. It was really yummy.
Our low was 54 as so far our high was 57 then it dropped back 55, its forecasted to hit low 70s but not sure it'll make with another rain round showing to come in this afternoon. All our rain storage is filled, so we are not collecting any of the overflow since its getting late into the summer, early fall time. We never fully used all the previously stored extra water so think we did well for paid water usage this year.
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Got down to 54 overnight, bet it was downright chilly at your place.
I don't eat corn anymore but Roxy can't get enough of it, I'll tell her about this a see what she thinks, thanks for the recipe.
Pretty amazing how well you guys have done on your rain collection system this year, guess that extra tank really paid off.
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yeah our low was 43. Lowest this next 10 days in our forecast is for 42 Wednesday night, and we are generally a few degrees cooler than the forecast here at our house. We cooled the house without using any fans!
So Jeff decided to pick that watermelon - SHUCKS! We should have waited another week cause the seeds in it were still all cream colored when they should be black. But it is yellow not red inside, its close enough that we will eat it as it didn't taste too bad still. It weighed in 5lbs 3oz.
We also picked a cantaloupe as the outer shell was just starting to show signs of cracking - it was perfectly sweet and ready. it weighed 2lb 9 oz, not hugs but a good size for out here and with just us two here, the right amount too.
here's a couple pics of melons and the watermelon seed packet so you'll know how it should have looked. [crazy]
I almost caught a baby snake - probably bull snake - at most though it was 10-12 inches, so Jeff is out 'hunting' for it, no luck for him either, we love looking at them and we always relocate farther away. Oh well.
Today was sure a nice temp.
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Only got down to 61 here overnight but yesterday was the first time since we started using the AC this year, that it did not turn on at all during the day[ ].
Too bad the watermelon wasn't all the way ripe, mine had some black seeds but it could have been a little more ripe. I've been growing yellow watermelons for several years now and we enjoy them.
Glad to hear your cantaloupe turned out well, when the guts start shrinking inside, like in your pic, I always know they are done.
Not sure if that snake was a bull snake or a water snake(WS). WS are a lot more common in our area but if it had the same markings as a rattlesnake without the rattles then it was likely a bull snake.
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yep same markings, that's why we expected it would be bull snake.
We were 42 last night, forecast was for 47. we've run our A/C for one evening just to be sure its still works in case we ever need/want to use it - like on rainy nights when you just don't want water coming in. We can move fans so they are under the overhang porches but its still can be wet air its blows in.
We spent the cooler morning trimming up flowering pear tree since its forecast to be wet this PM, tomorrow and even Thursday(our garbage day). Started hearing thunder and got few sprinkles so figured we'd call trimming done for this week, we even have two extra 30 gal cans full. We cut it up small enough that we'll get two pick ups on Thursday - our side and the neighbor's side with what we have cut up. Next week, we'll do the same again. (we just dump the 30gal cans into the 'pick up' can then wheel it over to the on other side of the street.)
Our son and the girls are mtn biking near Eden then coming here for a late lunch (the girls are not in school most of this month due to year round schooling). Hope they don't get rained on. But it wouldn't be first for them if they did that's for sure.
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First time I saw a bull snake it was in So Utah and it was a big, 6 plus ft long. I thought it was a rattlesnake until I noticed it had no rattles, I've never seen one up here in N Utah but it isn't like I look for them, lol. We see the common water snakes in our yard just about every year.
Got down to 52 last night here, sure is cool in the mornings and I heard there was snow in the Uinta mountains yesterday[crazy]. Are you saying by using the fans to cool your house at night, you did not have to use your AC this Summer?
We got a fair amount of rain yesterday and lots of lighting, they are saying we will get more today.
Amazing your G-kids can keep up with their dad going over that summit by Snowbasin, that seems like a brutal climb from the PV side.
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