WSU TIMELY TOPICS By Island County Extension Agent, Donald B. Meehan
EXPERIMENTING WITH SUMMER MELONS ON WHIDBEY ISLAND
Every once in a while this summer it has actually felt like summer. We have had some real ups and downs weather wise. On the hot days my taste buds begin to yearn for things like watermelon and cantaloupe.
Many Western Washington home gardeners have tried planting melons to find they never reached maturity prior to fall setting in. Now there is some hope. Plant breeders through the years have been working on developing short season varieties which would be suitable to climates like we have in the Puget Sound area.
Two years ago the WSU-Master Gardeners in Pierce County began testing varieties in their demonstration garden. Their results were encouraging. One cantaloupe variety developed by Burpee called Sweet-n-Early produced excellent results the first year.
This past year they ran further tests, knowing the summer of 1985 was a warm one. This time they made every effort to give the plants the maximum amount of heat they could get.
Enhancing the garden conditions involved mounding the soil for early season warm up and using black and clear plastic. No other techniques were used, with the exception that the site they have for the garden is completely exposed to the sun from all directions.
Several varieties were started indoors in peat pots. The cantaloupe ones were the Sweet-n-Early, Minnesota Midget, Scoop, Bush Whopper, Hale's Best, and Honeybush. Only two watermelon varieties were tested, You Sweet Thing and New Hampshire Midget. Using the peat pots helped to insure better transfer to the soil mounds in the garden.
Results after the second year trials indicated Burpee's Sweet-n-Early was the best quality melon. Its flavor, fragrance and size was every bit as good as those cantaloupes grown in warmer climates. Minnesota Midget and Scoop both produced good melons, but not as tasty as the Sweet-n-Early. Scoop ripened first but took 110 days instead of the 61 days listed on the seed packet.
Both watermelon varieties produced ripe fruit. They ranged in weight from 2 to 11 1/2 pounds each. The New Hampshire Midget produced the smaller fruit. They both had good color, were juicy and had sweet flavor.
Anyone attempting to grow melons on Whidbey Island should live inland away from west breezes. The coastal influence is significant here and people living on the waters edge will probably find melons very difficult to grow to maturity.
For more details about how these test plots were done please contact my office for a free handout.
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