Radishrain

I'm growing three spots of three different kinds of watermelons that each share congo as their matriarchal ancestor. There are probably three plants per spot, and each plant is probably different, too.

Anyway, I ate one today. I think it crossed again with Sugar Baby Bush last year, since the seeds are small, thick, and woody. Outwardly, it doesn't resemble Sugar Baby Bush, however, as in it's not round (which seems odd if it is a cross with it).

The flesh looked like that of the best-tasting watermelons I've had, but although it was good, it didn't taste like them.

It was solid dark green.

Here's a post about my Corrales Azafrán safflower from earlier this year: http://vegetables.boards.net/thread/442/corrales-azafr-safflower

My plants are starting to wind down for the season, by the look of it. They're falling over and I think the leaves are changing colors.

I'm letting all the flowers go to seed.

I have a spot where I'm growing watermelon where I lost the tag. They're some of my largest. I'd suspect that they were Congo cross, except all of my Congo crosses are accounted for. They could be Verona, but they'd probably be ripe by now if so. They have dark green, solid-color rinds. One fruit is long and one is round. Verona is round.

I'm going to Nickname them Corner watermelons, for now, since they're growing on the southeast corner of the patch and they're doing well there.

They must be Verona. Everything else seems accounted for. However, they're different enough from Verona that I'm still going to call them Corner. They're probably a cross. Since I don't know the matriarchal ancestor, I plan to treat this generation as the starting point for it. I'll have Corner Round, and Corner Long.

This thread is about the Santo Domingo Dark Green watermelon. For information about all three Santo Domingo watermelon breeds, see this link.

I ate the smallest of the three Santo Domingo Dark Green watermelons, today. It was very sweet and was pretty good. The rind had that winter melon skin texture to it, although it looked just like a Verona watermelon on the surface. It is a winter watermelon, according to Native Seeds.

In 2018, I discovered that my Tom Watson watermelon was a cross (probably with King Winter). It tasted almost as good as Tom Watson, but managed to get bigger than both Tom Watson and King Winter had for me.

In 2019, I grew F2 seeds and got three fruits. Each fruit seems to be from a different plant, as each fruit has different traits (I probably have three plants in one spot; I normally do that).

One fruit was a decent size, but still smaller than last year's. The taste was good, but not as great as last year's. The rind looked about the same (a moderate shade of green with darker green stripes). The seeds were black as they were last year.

The other two fruits resembled miniature King Winter fruits (round and light green with darker green stripes). One had red or brown seeds (I'm not sure which) and tasted considerably different. The other had black seeds and tasted quite good, much as the parent, but different.

The one with red or brown seeds must have crossed with either Bozeman, Ancient, or Red-seeded Citron. My guess would be Ancient, except it would have a darker rind then. So, it must be Bozeman or King Winter must have been crossed without my knowledge (before cross-pollinating Tom Watson). The flesh wasn't so firm as for me to think it was Red-seeded Citron. I'm going to assume King Winter was true-to-type in 2016 (when I saved the crossed Tom Watson seeds), as that was the first year I grew King Winter. So, Bozeman must be it!

I grew Neapolitan last year in containers. I'm growing it this year in the ground with a shredded wood mulch. It's doing better this year, and ripening faster. The first ripe fruit was a while ago.

Here are some pictures of the fruits. I saved seeds from the three large ones in the bowl on 20 Aug 2019; those fruits aren't in the second picture. They tasted pretty good. They have a good sweet tang.

I harvested four ripe fruits of the Early Treat F1 tomato on 20 Aug 2019. They were the first on the plant. They were salad-sized with a normal salad tomato taste (maybe a little sweet). The skins were thick. The plant had eastern shade and a late start. I saved F2 seeds from these fruits.




Vendors:
• The Home Depot (Burpee brand)

f1_hybrid_tomato
f2_hybrid_tomato

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I grew Delicious 51 from Everwilde Farms. I knew from the picture of it where I bought it that it was probably a cross, but I wanted to try it anyway. It grew a fruit that looked like a Charentais melon (but it tasted very delicious in a way that the Charentais melon I grew this year did not, and it had a good texture; I don't want to call it firm, but I don't know a better word that wouldn't sound off-putting; fibrous is the better but off-putting word, but it's a good texture and not a bad one; it wasn't fibrous like old broccoli is fibrous or anything). It smelled very good and was quite sweet. It had orange flesh (more orange than the picture depicts). It cracked on the blossom end, but the flesh didn't have that spicy fungal taste or anything (so, not a bad crack).

It was my fourth favorite melon for taste that I've tasted so far (but it had strong competition).

Today seems to be watermelon day (2019) or the day when we first harvest lots of watermelons at once. I found nineteen ripe ones, the largest of them being a Santo Domingo Dark Green. Most of the winter watermelons and larger watermelons are still ripening.

Alas, I don't mean National Watermelon Day. That's August 3rd.

We have the following here:
* Santo domingo Dark Green x 3
* Ancient x 2
* Congo cross x 6
* Verona x 5
* Tom Watson cross x 2 (these are the two small ones that look like winter watermelons; they're evidently from a different plant than the first one I harvested; they're F2s; so, that explains how they're different)
* Unidentified x 1