All Of Them!

From this:

 

To this:

 

For some reason they're far more green in this picture than they are in real life, where they're mostly black with hints of dust.

 

They're all dead.  Super, duper wicked dead.  My great melon owning dream is over!  Noooooo!

 

I can't believe they all bit it so quickly.

 

Basically, I've either sprinkled radioactive waste among the roots, the blackfly invasion, or some unbeknownst disease has ravaged them.  You can take your pick as to which it might be.

 

They went from being healthy to dead in about three days which has to be some kind of world record, and due to the quickness I can't see it being anything other than disease.  They were dying before the insects really took hold and I haven't even obtained the shipment of bomb grade plutonium from my Saudi contact yet.

 

Anyway, this years dream is done (I'm still watering them in hopes of some last minute resurgence that yields a single fruit, tennis ball sized) so it's onto planning next years fruitdeavour.  Definitely strawberries, but I also need a big ticket item to get the farming business underway.  Something that has the shock value of a 1,000kg pumpkin but isn't completely lame.

 

Ideas welcome.

Check These Out



Check 'em.



 

 

So these are my melons.  Check 'em.

 

The ones closest to the camera don't look particularly healthy, for some reason those ones really do not like the wind, whereas the ones further away have adapted by just spreading to the floor.

 

Since this picture was taken (two days ago) they've filled in the spaces between themselves, attempting to kill each other to try and steal all the light.  I'm of two minds with regards to this.  Firstly, I shouldn't have planted two plants per bag but the girlfriend threatened to murder me on account of 'wasting soil,' so the compromise was putting two plants in.  I don't think either of us realised just how rampant they could get.  Let's just hope they'll be okay as long as I feed them a ton and give them all the water.

 

Secondly the competition is probably a good thing at early stages, but now they need to get as big as possible to give me enormous melons, so the competition for space and light probably isn't a good thing now.

 

I honestly don't know how many melons or of what size to expect.  Or even if I should expect melons at all, considering they haven't even flowered yet.

 

I wonder whether I should cut a hole on either side of the current big square, in order to ensure all the roots are getting at least some water.  I feel like it's a waste to just keep watering the exposed middle square, as a lot of the roots will just be hanging around in completely dry soil on either side.

 

I assume feeding the centre is okay, because that's where the greatest concentration of roots will be.

 

But really, who can tell in this economy?



The Melonpocalypse

So I managed to grow on a few melons from seed, enough to fill a couple of bags of compost or soil or whatever it is.  Anyway, having grown the seeds on past the carrying capacity of their small pots, it came time to plant them in these bags and put them outside.  I waited for the right time; warm enough that it was not going to freeze again, and with good enough weather that they would get a decent start.

Yesterday was forecast to have slight wind, fair amounts of cloud and some rain, so I thought I may as well put them out at that time and let the plants get a taste for the outdors before any serious weather came into play.

Yesterday there was a mini-typhoon.  The weather news got it completely wrong (at least the weather news I subscribe to) and it was bloody wet and bloody windy.  The wet obviously isn't much of a problem, but the windy certainly was.  The small seedlings were blown about like comedy umbrellas, folding all over the place.  The upshot is that I don't know whether they've survived or not.  Even if they do survive they'll likely have PTSD and never regain their vigour.

On the plus side I hear that smaller fruit and veg tends to be tastier, so assuming something lives and bears fruit, they'll be the tastiest melons in the world.

I did keep the other germinated melons around just in case of emergency, so if it comes to wholesale change then I'll do what must be done.  Wholesale melonslaughter.  The downside to this plan is that I deliberately chose the strongest ones to put outside, so the only ones that are left are the pathetic weaklings that barely made it out of the ground.  Melongenics is a tough, tough business.

Melon Dramatic

So the melons are coming along nicely.  They absolutely shot up at first, but have kind of levelled out now.  The second wave of growth is coming through.

A total of eleven have germinated, leaving six stuck in eternal slumber.  The roots are starting to poke through on a few of them, so I'll have to decide which ones to keep and which ones to guerilla plant in a park somewhere around here.

Playstation controller for scale.

The spider plants have completely stopped growing.  One of two things is responsible for this - I've been keeping the melons wet as is the way of melons apparently, and that is either too wet for the spiders, or the precipitous drop in temperature this week has stunted their growth.  Seriously, it was twenty degrees last week and now it's nine.  And raining.  What is up with that?

The next step is presumably planting them into something bigger.  These pots are designed to be planted whole, the roots grow through and they disintegrate.  I think another week or so should do it, what with the weather becoming warmer for good.  Probably.

Melons Ahoy You Pervert

Not those kinds of melons.  These ones:

They're already desperately attracted to the sun so until I plant them outside I'm going to rotate them around.  By the pictures I've seen on the internet they seem to sprawl which would seem to suggest they just kind of flop over and face the sun as soon as they can.  But we don't suffer layabouts here, so they're going to grow upwards until they get their own place.

So far we have four confirmed germinations which is good news for melon lovers, as I only have three possible spots.  The strongest survive.  The weakest may well go into a playoff for the final two positions, both living in one pot with the aim being to grow little portable melons to send back to england.  I'm not sure of their edibility, but they might make good ornaments.

The other weaklings must, I'm afraid, head off into the sunset, unless of course I can sneakily plant them somewhere around here where no one will notice.  Guerilla gardening.

Farming

So I'm now officially a farmer.

Interestingly, of the dozen melons I planted this is the only one to come up so far.  These four plants were separated from the rest which makes me assume that the quarantine I imposed on these guys was actually beneficial in some way.  I'm assuming it's warmer where I put them.  Or maybe I forgot to water them and that made this melon start growing.

The spider plant also has some new growth which is encouraging.  I've since put these four somewhere brighter, and moved the other lazy bastards where these guys were previously.  If they don't start getting their acts together, they'll be in the bin.  I've already given them a verbal warning, next is written.

Operation Fruits Go Go

So I'm going to try and grow some fruits this year.  As a cursory fan of enormous fruit and veg, I obviously went straight to melons, because they don't have the potential of, say, a pumpkin -  but they can still get big.  I think both those pictures are the same grower.

Anyway, the biggest oaks start with the smallest acorns.  Or something.

The two in the middle are spider plants, I'm trying to grow new ones because I had a couple of spare pot things.

I'm going for some strawberries too, but I'm still trying to figure out how to get all this lot in the sun outside.  The veranda is extremely thin and has a high wall, so it doesn't get much sunlight.  I'll have to find a table, or even better, steps.

Something to think mull over.

And a picture of, is that Putin?  Riding a weasel?  Riding a woodpecker?  Being chased by Gandalf?  And a stormtrooper?  The internet in a nutshell.