It's August 17. Summer is coming to a close.
All through June and July, the watermelon vines sat and shivered in the cold and didn't grow, didn't flower, didn't do anything. Finally, in August, I start to get some action and now I have about a half dozen fruits from the size of baseballs to Chicago fatballs. These, I suppose, late in September might be ripe. [The varieties are Blacktail Mountain and Yellow Doll.]
But the stoopid vines have taken it into their heads to set more fruit. I'm sure they'll never mature at this late date, and I don't really want to be eating watermelon for Thanksgiving. So I'm thinking of pinching off any new fruits and all the flowers from this point, on the theory that this might direct more energy into the fruits that might actually have a chance to ripen.
This message was edited Aug 17, 2009 7:16 PM
Watermelon Dilemmon
I would definitely pinch them back. With other types of melons some sources tell you to cut off the vines past a certain length and date so that the energy of the plant will go into ripening the ones that actually have a chance of becoming edible in time.
I wouldn't cut these vines, as they're still pretty meager and I think they need all the leaves they can grow. But I've cut off all the little new melons that had set and now I'm pinching the flowers.
I'd do the same thing to the cucumis melons, but, as usual, it's hard to find anything among all the vines.
I have to say that Blacktail Mountain doesn't seem to grow any better in cool weather than any other melon.