Golden Midget Watermelon

Planing Ahead

Planning ahead, um, by accident, or sometimes some things just work out?

Four or even five weeks ago now I ordered some Golden Midget watermelon seeds from Riverview Seeds.

Then a couple of days later I was out in the garden with some extra broad bean seeds wondering how or where I could use them.

Inspiration

Then inspiration and perspiration met.

I'd already spread a bag of fairly fresh horse over an area that need some extra preparation for the coming Spring and Summer with no plan for what I was going to p;ant and grow there.

I roughly turned the manure over into the soil, added a bucket of coffee grounds and bunged the seeds in for a green manure crop.

It didn't matter that much if they failed to germinate or not the soil would still be ready for the watermelon seeds in Spring anyway but now I have the benefit of some extra nutrition from the broad beans.

Now I have the perfect spot for planting my Golden Midget watermelon seeds.

Melon ‘Golden Midget’ Watermelon

Miniature, 3 lb. watermelon with a rind that turns golden yellow when ripe.

One of the earliest to mature, with sweet, refreshing, salmon-pink flesh.

 70 days from transplant

Care: Space 3-5′ apart in all directions. Melons need heat and well-drained soil: plant in full sun in raised beds or hills.

Potato time

The rain had reduced to a shower on Wenesday or two and the sun had been able to peak through a few clouds enough to allow me to get the last of my spuds out of the ground at the

Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens. I was a little disappointed with the harvest though, returning only two or three smallish spuds per bush. All things considered with the weather they had to endure I suppose they did alright.

Here is Neville with one of the bigger Sebagos that he took home for making chips with.

I'll be preparing the now 'ex', potato patch for members of the onion and brassica family over the next few weeks. So I'll be adding lime, horse, cow and chicken manure to the soil and digging it all through.

One of the more disappointing things going on at the Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens is the crows getting into the corn before I even get a chance to get near it. I have some bird netting in the shed I purchased a while to keep the birds out of my plum tree so I'm going to throw it over the corn an see if I can salvage a cob or two for myself.







Tomatoes; I've had an absolute dismal year for tomatoes so far. First it's been bone dry, then scorchingly hot, then rainy and overcast and on top of all that I think I have over done it with the potash and the fruit fly has beaten me to nearly every piece of fruit available.

So it tomatoes take two, hoping I'll have better luck in the second half of the season. I have planted seedlings of Burke's Backyard tomato at the community gardens and some seedlings of Yellow Perfection and Reisentraube (chreey tom bearing trusses of 20 to 40 fruits) at home.


Spelt Wheat I'd like to say I've been busy preparing the spelt wheat patch at the Toowoomba Community Organic Gardens but I suspect someone there likes using the rotary hoe a lot because I haven't done a thing. That might all change tomorrow (Sunday) because now that it has rained and the soil is moist it's time to get the green manure crop started.








The cow-pea seed needs to be planted up to three inches deep so I'll hand broadcast them first and rotary hoe them in and the Japenese millet only needs to be sown shallowly so I'll be hand broadcasting that and rake it over lightly and hopefully we'll get a nice storm and water the whole lot in. Fingers crossed lets see how I go.







This is the progress of the red kidney beans (5 x 10 mtr rows). Flowering like mad and setting heaps of pods after the rain. Am I looking forward to harvesting? No, not really, but then they won't harvest themselves. The Navy beans planted 2/3 weeks after have enjoyed the rain as well and are flowering and setting beans like mad.

This is just a pretty photo of a pretty Gerbra to say good-bye with.
Good-bye and cheers till next time

Stewart.