Season of Melonmania!

A month ago, summer seemed to hold its greatest promise in abeyance as I watched green tomatoes sit idly in the garden, seemingly doing nothing whatsoever, day after day, hour after hour.
Of course June is not to blame.  It is mostly a month of spring, not summer, and the cause for my complaints is impatience overfed by long expectation:  in January, I wait for seed catalogs to be published; in February, I imagine the new plants I will grow; in March I germinate tiny seeds by the window; and in April and May I guard the fragile seedlings in cold frames against frost and heat.  No, June is not to blame at all!  It is simply the month when the cruelty of expectations bears its fruit. 



But no longer!  This years volunteer sunflowers are in bloom.   Tigerellas, Black from Tulas and Caspian Pink (above right) tomatoes are all coming into ripeness. 

This years biggest excitement is Sweet Freckles (right), a crenshaw melon that turns orange with brown freckles when fully ripe.  There is only 1 company (Adaptive Seeds) that sells it in North America.  On the left is Petit Gris de Rennes which, due to a year spent in the city of the same name, holds a special place for me.  It is a soft-ball sized french cantaloupe.   Will it recall days spent playing soccer by the Seiche river, or bicycle rides where the hay in the fields seem to shine mysteriously, as if invented in this location?  Perhaps not, but it just may, as the catalog notes "have orange flesh that is superbly sweet, flavorful and perfumed.... the favorite melon of the French melon expert and author Bruno Defay." 

Last but not least of all are the watermelons that hold their secrets the longest and best of all.  When are they ripe?  You can tap, you can search the vines for clues, but you will never truly know until a day in mid or late August when, unable to endure waiting any longer, you cut the vine and bring it into the kitchen.  The greatest moment of expectation for any gardener.

Garden update!

It's been an odd year.  No rain, then lots.  Lots of heat, then none. 

But it is June none-the-less and the only really terrifying questions at this point are whether squash boring bugs have found the melon garden I added last year and whether the blight that swept across NE in 2009 will return with all the rains we've had. 

This picture (left) is Cocozella de Napoli from Landreth's seed company.  It did not germinate well in peat discs as was the case with all of my squashes. I need to rethink my approach for next year but I am very excited to have 2 new varieties of squash this year. 

On the right, is Ronde de Nice from Baker's Creek seed company.  This was highly rated in the comments on the company's web site which I really found to be helpful. 

Baker's Creek is one of the Companies that brought a legal claim against Monsanto for spreading genetic contamination of our nation's seed supply.  Let's hope that - like the microbrew industry before the 1980s - we are just at a low point and will experience a resurgence of plant diversity in our food supply.  I'm not overly optimistic but I'm hopeful it works out that way. 

Some of my melons (Petit gris de Rennes, Sweet Freckles) have been chewed up by some kind of insect although not fatally so.  This picture is Sweet Freckles that is a crenshaw type melon originally from central asia, probably Afganistan, Uzbekistan or the like, that was popular in the pacific northwest before almost disappearing from the United States.  It is now sold by Adaptive Seeds - the only company to carry it from what I understand.  I am really looking forward to it.  The Bozeman Watermelons I grew last year from Adaptive Seeds were ripe in mid-August, an amazing thing for N.H. 

In any case, I'm happy it's june and the promise of summer still lies ahead. 

Plants, get them before they are gone.

Sorry for the sloppy format of this post.  Here is what I have left... I'm giving away everything as fast as I can before it all goes to the compost.  This picture was taken on May 7 and the plants are over twice this size at this point. 

From Baker's Creek:

Caspian Pink Tomato
Black from Tula Tomato
Tigerella Tomato
Petit Gris de Rennes Melon
Ronde De Nice (summer squash)

From Adaptive Seeds:

	Tomato, De Berao Braun
	Tomato, Uralskiy Ranniy
	Cucumber, Mideast Peace
	Sweet Pepper, Liebesapfel
	Campanula, Dinner Bells
	Cauliflower, Leamington Winter Giant  I also have random open pollinated sunflowers that came up in the garden that I have transplanted into pots.  They should get to 8-12 feet based on last year and will be anywhere from moppy yellow to traditional yellow-orange to red.

Weatherspark!

I've been using Weatherspark for all things related to gardening this year and really love the site.  It allows you to customize the weather information you want to see.... and you avoid the incessant fluff and most weather sites bombard you with.  I love the fact that it shows temperature curves so not only do you see when the daily highs, and lows, will be reached, but you can also look at when the precipitation will start, what the wind speed and direction will be.  All important stuff if you are trying to manage 100+ plants in a cold frame in March and April. 

Check it out for sure. 

Nothing Better than Spring... Except a Warmer Spring

After an initial heat wave it has been really slow and cold. I'm keeping all of my tomatoes inside at night as it has been consistently just above freezing. Also, I just replaced the top to my cold frame and I'm unsure how well it insulates.

I guess as I get older and have less free time due to work and tending the children as well as the garden, I'm less willing to take risks.

This year's plants are coming along well. Here are my Tigerella tomatoes which are red with orange stripes. I'm pretty excited to see them. I got close to 100% germination in part because of the seed warming mat I bought this year. It's been a great help reducing the time for seed germination from about a week to 4-5 days. That really helps when space is limited, as it always is this time of year.