Melon and zuchinni pollination

[chickenwhisperer]

Steve, again I thank you for that explanation-for-dummies(me)!
Im actually in 95817, so your example is perfect!
9b

 

[grow_my_own]

Steve, again I thank you for that explanation-for-dummies(me)!
Im actually in 95817, so your example is perfect!
9b

I used to live in 95817, right around the corner from UCDMC. It was the late 80s and early 90s & I worked at the hospital there.

Small world.

 

[chickenwhisperer]

I used to live in 95817, right around the corner from UCDMC. It was the late 80s and early 90s & I worked at the hospital there.

Small world.

It IS a small world, I can see ucdmc from my back window, Im right behind it, under the helipad...

btw- so you know how small these yards are around here... Im growing about 90% of my garden in containers on my driveway...

 

[chickenwhisperer]

So here I find myself 11 days after starting this thread, and I have an update...

The melons have taken off.
Within days of posting, I started noticing more and more female flowers on both the watermelon plants, and the cantaloup plant.
Right now I have 5 watermelons and 8 cantelopes growing.
I reconfigured my melon plants to a trellace type setup,and they really seem to be loving the extra room and more sun.

I actually found my first zuchinni female flower today too, its on a black beauty plant.
Hopefully these plants will be like the melons and just take off one day.



I took a few pics, I doubt anybody really cares, but this thread has certainly helped me and its nice to see all my melon progress in one place.

heres the watermelons, they are right at home on this heavy duty wire shelf.

My plan is to grow 5 watermelons on each level of the shelf, these are a large variety called jubilee and can get up to 40lbs, and 10 40lb watermelons is about all I can handle...


Here is the cantaloup plant, my plan is to grow a few lower down, and then once the vines cover the trellace extensions, Ill let some grow up there dangling down.
Now I love cantaloup, and Im trying to stagger a few harvests about 2 weeks apart, and believe it or not after complaining about not having any Im actually cutting off female flowers so I can stagger the harvests by a couple weeks.
This plant I can almost see the vines grow, so two weeks and it should fill in my trellace.
My girlfriend LOOVES her some cantaloup so this plant totally get babied and fussed over

here is my jack-o-lantern pumpkin plants, Im keeping them trimmed and small, Theres 3 plants and Ill let each one grow 1or 2 pumpkin, that should be plenty.
I have a giant pumpkin plant I planted directly in the top of a finshed compost heap, and Imma try to grow 1 really big pumpkin

And here is 2 pots of one type of zuchinni, plant has lotsa growth, but the leaves are always a bit yellowish, still no female flowers from these.

As you can see, everything is in containers, I water every morning with my own recipe of tea its good and strong, I dont give any of my container plants plain water anymore, the pots are so full of roots that they need the daily nutrition of the tea added or it really messes them up(learned that the hard way i guess).
My plants are all maxed out in there containers, and Im not repotting as Ive done it 2x already.
Ill get a good yield for me and my girl, and next year Ill do it a bit differently from the start.

And so, if you made it this far, thankyou very much for tunin in

 

[so lucky]

Great set-up! I can taste the melons now!

 

[thistlebloom]

Thanks for sharing your methods and illustrating with pics. I'm finding it very interesting. Your big shelf unit with the melons growing up it looks like a great way to give them space and plenty of light and air. I'll be interested in your harvest!