Charleston Grays in Houston

2 of the Charleston Gray watermelons developed blossom-end rot at the same time. We've had some really heavy rains, so that may be the cause. I didn't want to just throw the melons away after the long wait even though they were far from the projected 25 pounds. David was put-off by their ugly appearance, but I persuaded him to give the melon a try. We cut one open and it looked like a normal watermelon inside, but the taste was disappointingly bland and dry. We both stopped after one bite and tossed the melon in the garbage.

The second melon sat on our kitchen counter for a week because I didn't have the heart to throw it away. Yesterday I decided to cut it open just to collect the seeds, and I was surprised by how much redder and juicier this melon was. Despite my unpleasant memories of the first melon, I gave this one a try and it tasted significantly better that its sibling. It was fresh and sweet, with a nice crispy texture. I sliced it up, and sent slices over to the neighbors' house.

My theory about the improved flavor of the second melon is that it benefited from a week of maturation in the house. I had to pick the melon prematurely because of the rotten end, but it needed that extra week to develop its sugars and tasty watermelon flavor. The third melon that is about the same age as the two I harvested still looks great, with no signs of blossom-end rot, and I'm going to leave it to mature on the vine as long as possible. We also have a fourth melon, which is small but already black on one end. This will probably have to be cut soon.

Melons are turning out to be quite a challenge, first with pollination and now with surviving our tropical weather. This may not be a fruit we grow again next year, although I'm saving the seeds just in case I change my mind.

Giving the watermelons a helping hand

I found two female watermelon blossoms on our "Charleston Gray" plants right around the same time. I hand-pollinated both, and didn't think about them again for a few weeks. At first, I couldn't remember exactly where the female blossoms had been. I looked along the vine, and there was a BIG baby watermelon. I picked it up and it was incredibly dense, much heavier than I expected something that size to be. I soon found a second watermelon nearby, and it was even bigger.


Since then, I've discovered a third melon in the garden, and all three watermelons have grown incredibly fast. They're still growing rapidly, so the question is when to harvest for maximum flavor. Determining when a watermelon is ripe sounds challenging. Some books suggest the melon is ready to pick when the small tendril nearby turns brown and dry. Others suggest listening for a hollow sound when you thump the watermelon. I don't see any little tendrils near my watermelons, and I don't trust my sense of acoustics enough to accurately assess the sound of my melons. I'm going with the third approach, which is to watch the underside of the melon. When the bottoms change to a warm, creamy yellow, the melon is ready to harvest.

Right now, all three melons are bright white underneath. I try not to disturb them too often to peek at the bottoms, so I'm also gauging their size to determine maturity. Charleston Grays should reach between 28 and 35 pounds. Our biggest melon is close to 15 pounds right now, and the smaller two are probably around 10 pounds each. You wouldn't predict those weights from looking at the melons -- they are much heavier than their size suggests. This is our first experience growing watermelons, but they must lose that density as the melons approach maturity. I'm tempted to take our bathroom scale out into the garden to get an exact weight -- they are growing so fast, it would be interesting to take a daily reading -- but I doubt the melons will enjoy being moved onto a scale every day.

Melons should not be watered too much as they approach maturity or the flavor will diminish. We've had a few good rains this past week, so I'm not watering the plants at all. The leaves look green and healthy, and the vines are continuing to grow and sprawl through the garden. There are tiny new flowers every day, although so far I haven't discovered any new female blooms. Now that I know hand-pollination works well, I try to look every day so I won't miss an opportunity to help create another baby watermelon. I'm already planning dinner of watermelon salad with feta and mint, with a watermelon agua fresca to drink. The way the melons are growing, it should be any day now.

No luck growing watermelons

We planted "Charleston Gray" watermelon plants on April 1st. It's now the end of July, and we haven't produced a single mature fruit. The vines have stretched in all directions, around and over everything in site. The plants are lush and healthy, and constantly covered with tiny yellow flowers. Every so often they send out little tendrils looking for support. When they grab onto one of our other plants a little too vigorously, I cut off the tendril binding the two plants together.

So why so many flowers and no fruit? I suspect one of the problems is that most of those flowers are males, and the few females are not getting pollinated. The flowers are quite small, but today I bent down to study them and noticed a female flower clearly different from the others. Sure enough, just under the flower is a baby watermelon. I picked off two male flowers and used both to pollinate the female.

A few weeks ago, I was thrilled to find a small fruit hidden below some leaves. Although no bigger than my son's hand, it was a perfect miniature Charleston Gray watermelon. After the whole family admired our baby, I photographed it and put it back under the leaves where I found it. We had several days of very heavy rain, and when I next checked on the baby watermelon it was shriveled up and black. I'm guessing the rain and blossom-end rot are to blame, but I'm not really sure what happened.















I have read that pollination is often poor for all vegetables when the temperature is too high. We have hit 100 degrees just about every day since early June, so the weather may be in part to blame. The flowers are also quite small, and I rarely see bees or butterflies paying them any attention. They clearly prefer the big squash blossoms. Hand-pollinating has been very successful with our Benning's Green Tint plants, so I'm hoping for similar success with the watermelons.

We've had an unusual summer, with weeks of drought. I had to water the garden almost every day, and we received a notice from the city that our water consumption was unusually high thanks to this lack of rain. The weather finally returned to normal a few weeks ago: high temperatures followed by intense tropical storms followed by more heat. Our eggplants seem to love this combination of heat and heavy rain. They're growing like crazy and covered with flowers. Unfortunately, the mosquitos seem happy too, and I'm back to gardening in long-sleeves and sweat pants to avoid them. I'm not so sure about the watermelons, and hope that we'll produce at least one big melon by the end of the summer. I've been keeping an eye on the little melon I hand-pollinated, and it hasn't grown yet but it is green and healthy. We all hope this one will make it.