Thursday, June 23, 2011

Where Are My Melons?

Bucolic Bushwick Rooftop Vegetable Garden 2011

Don't the melon plants look fantastic? Now if I could just get some melons to go with them everything would be great! I guess my hand pollinating efforts have failed, I'll keep on trying though. Last year I got 3 melons out of 2 plants with no hand pollination. I thought I could easily do better this year since I had a better handle on how to grow these plants, but now I'm getting worried.

I saw a single bee collecting pollen on Tuesday, hopefully he was able to work his magic. I need more flowers to attract more bees. Right now I have 2 pots with flowers, clearly that's not enough. And here I thought I was done with spending money this year, oh well.

Bucolic Bushwick Rooftop Vegetable Garden 2011


The Atris peppers are getting long. These are about 6 inches.

Bucolic Bushwick Rooftop Vegetable Garden 2011


The Lemon cucumber has powdery mildew so I'm spraying it with the organic fungicide that I bought last year to treat early blight, Serenade Garden Disease Control.

You know what's interesting is that some peas I grew last year in the same place also had powdery mildew. Not the same container, but the same location on the roof, next to the rear chimney with the reed fence. Is the fungus that causes powdery mildew in peas the same fungus that causes it in cucumbers? Maybe something in this location harbored the fungus over the winter, or maybe it's just a coincidence and I'm over thinking the situation. Something to research.


Bucolic Bushwick Rooftop Vegetable Garden 2011


The eggplants have arrived! They're growing quickly, I'll probably harvest some next week. How is your garden doing? I'm surprised at how early some things are producing.

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9 comments:

  1. Wow! Your eggplants look terrific!! I hope you get some melons soon! Good luck with that powdery mildew and thanks for telling us what you use to deal with it. What are you going to do with your first eggplants?

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  2. Thanks Aimee, I like to pick the eggplants when they're small and eat them as a snack. I just saute them in a little olive oil and then sprinkle them with salt.

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  3. There's always a shopping opportunity. Your garden looks amazing.
    You are at least a month a head of me. My tomatoes are just starting to flower, peppers haven't flowered yet, strawberries are in flower, peas are growing well and bean germination has been really slow - I'm replanting them this weekend. I've been harvesting pea shoots, spinach and some spicy greens.
    Please send some heat west! Good luck with the melons.

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  4. I hope you get some melons too, i've never been able to grow them here, but that is probably because i live in Scotland - though they may work in a greenhouse.

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  5. H Kim, I'd be happy give you some heat, but the weather has been really mild these past few weeks. I'm loving it, but the plants could use more sun and warmth.

    Hi Shaheen, what's your garden zone? If you can get them to grow they're certainly worth the effort. The flavor of homegrown melons is eye-popping.

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  6. How many melons did you end up getting? One problem I had was that I was giving them too much nitrogen (organically, of course) when they actually need lots of phosphorus. Just a thought.

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  7. Hi Elaine, I picked up two sugar baby seedlings on impulse yesterday and have an 18 gallon self-watering container set up for them. These will be on an east-facing rooftop that gets sun until about 1-2pm (so about 6-7 hours). I have plenty of space to let them trail on the ground (a black rooftop, I'd have to protect the bottom of any melons that develop), but I could also build a bamboo trellis, which might extend the amount of sun they get and reduce heat issues later in the summer. Which do you think would work best?

    Thanks as usual for all the useful info! I was inspired by your blog to try a couple of hot pepper plants and the watermelons, using my rooftop and self-watering containers for the first time.

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    1. Hi Lou, how's it going? I'm glad you're trying watermelons, homegrown melons are very satisfying to eat in the summer. How windy is your rooftop? I would be worried about the wind whipping around the vines if you let them trail on the ground. If wind isn't much of an issue I would actually try both methods. One plant gets the trellis and the other is allowed to trail. See which one performs better by the end of the summer.

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