Crimson Sweets, Sugar Baby Watermelons & Ollas- Southern California

Its that time of year again! Whoo-hoo! Watermelon season.  Last year I grew Crimson Sweet melons in my back yard--er-- I mean, canyon/very steep hilly area with a few mostly flatish areas.   It was an insane spreader and covered a serious amount of area.  I grew it in a raised bed, and let the vines fall over the corner so as not to take of the entire box.  Read about it here.  At the end of the season I ended up with four 25-30 lb melons, so about 100 pounds of watermelon.  Oh yea!  Being a watermelon freak, I want more.  

Saving watermelon seeds is a breeze.  Eat the watermelon, spit out the seed, rinse and let air dry.  Wrap up the dried seeds and keep in a dry place with moderate temperature.  Plant again next spring.  And that is just what I did.  Let me tell you, you can plant a watermelon farm with all the seeds you could save.  BUT, make sure your variety is open pollinated and that you only grew one variety of watermelon that year.  Otherwise you may get a watermelon vine with no fruit, or a wacko watermelon that may or may not taste any good.  Seems like a fun experiment to grow a mystery fruit, but if you don't have the space to waste, then you may want to just compost those mystery seeds.

Crimson Sweet Seedling & Terracotta Olla Waterer

Did anyone tell you there is a drought in California? No?  Well there is.  In San Diego, we are only allowed to water on certain days of the week and for limited time.  Buzz kill if you are a really into your home garden; needless to say I've had to get creative this year.  I'm doing the olla-thing.  The Olla thing involves burying a water permeable vessel next to your crops and watering your plants by filling the vessel up with water.  The vessel will leach water into the soil  thus ensuring the roots to your plants are nice and well watered.  You don't add water to the surface where it can run off and evaporate.  Ollas are made of earthen clay that hasn't been glazed.  BUT ollas are like 30 bucks a pop!  By the way 'Olla' just means pot in Spanish, so peeps might be really confused if you just start taking about ollas in garden!  

Sugar Baby Watermelon & Strawbs

I went cheapo and bought terracotta pots, glued them together until totally sealed, but for a hole in the top for filling with water.  I "planted" the terracotta olla next to my crimson sweet seeds with the top above ground and filled the vessel with water regularly.  Since I am mostly filling it with water I collect inside the house while waiting for faucets to spit out hot water, I am thinking it doesn't count as "watering."  Low and behold, my seeds sprouted and I've got a baby crimson sweet starting to grow.  I am worried that I didn't amend my soil enough to take into account the extreme clay content in the ground.  But I've mulched it already and am gearing up to add more mulch in hopes of combating this nasty water  deficit.  

Sugar Baby Melons- I picked up some Sugar Baby Melon seedlings at Walter Anderson's Nursery (my favorite SD nursery).  I tucked a plant into a raised bed and am still trying to figure out where I can put another plant or two.  I hope to be knee deep in melons this summer.  Smitty, my 8 year old corgi, loves chomping on watermelon and watermelon rind and I anticipate my chickens be all over watermelon too.  I just can't get enough.  

Header Image Courtesy of irum of freeimages.com