Root Veggies Suck | Lettuce Seedlings | The Melon Race

I gave up on my root veggies in rows, again. For some reason, turnips and radishes have a nasty habits of throwing all the dirt off of their roots and not developing anything but top growth for me. 

So I dug up and saved the two-week old lettuces and potted them in cups. I'll let them get up to a month and then put them back out after they will make good transplants. The Parris Island Cos will probably be ready to set out at the same time. 

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce about two weeks old

The winner for this second melon season will probably be this Athena, pictured in the previous post, and now a week or so riper in this photo. It's putting on a pretty beige-yellow net, and starting to smell wonderful.

Athena from previous entry, now a week older and developing netting.

However, coming in close second is this Ambrosia melon, which is probably a week or 10 days out, and making my mouth water already.

The legendary Ambrosia muskmelon basking in 105 degrees. 

 Just meters away in third place is another Ambrosia (so affluent was the farmer Foppl!).

Ambrosia ripener #2 soon to be eaten. 

For a true description of the glory of the Ambrosia, and someone more obsessed with melons than I, check out Wayne Schmidt's Extreme Melon Growing page.

In all likelihood, any three of the twenty Early Silver Lines will ripen any time now, but due to size and the sheer quantity that would have to be monitored, are excluded from this particular race. 

Two more Athena in the same patch as the topmost, 10 days from picking. 

...and just in case we get hungry, there are two more four-pounders in the front 10 days from the pickins. 

So affluent. The farmer. 


Foppl. 

Obsession?

I was concerned that my largest Athena was weighing down the entire front yard trellis, and was probably going to slip 3 weeks from ripeness if the tensile pressure on the stem was not relieved. Thus, small plastic pot and baby blanket, two tent stakes to anchor said pot in place. The trellis stopped contorting 45 degrees out of true, and the stem relaxed nicely with no stress - tensile or shear. Hopefully no damage was done and it will slip normally. I say it's got another 1 1/2 weeks. 

All three of the large (1 1/2 week) ripeners on this plant recently developed very heavy ribbing. I was concerned that they might split, but it looks like they're good. 

Left to right: Squash Fail, Squash Win

Here's our son Joseph with the his recent pickings. He left the big one for me to clip, but he picked the baby one yesterday and sheepishly pointed it out while harvesting the larger fruit this morning. I guess he figured if he set it gently back onto the vine part it might get bigger anyway. 

He's cute.