Dendro's Outdoor Grow 2022

[FieldEffect]

Great pics!

I live on a fraction of an acre, so not much to get familiar with unfortunately. Same area I’ve lived all my life in the desert of the SW.

I looked up all my watermelons for maturity dates as well as my grow journal to see when I planted them. They went into the ground 5/14, started the seeds inside 5/7. Only 78 days down I guess, I’m just excitable.

Kleckly’s Sweet (85-100 days)
Black Diamond (90 days)
Ali Baba (no date specfied)

I’ll give them a couple more weeks and do some thumping on the Kleckly’s. There are a few melons on each type so it wouldn’t be heartbreaking to find out I get an immature one. Rule of thumb seems to just be wait longer, sorry to hear about yours We seem to have the same enthusiasm

[Dendro]

Yes, melons can do that! Your collection sounds wonderful Are the Black diamonds…um black? Guessing their like blood red…So cool that there are so many different types to try. Ive been gardening for awhile and only try a few new things every year(green beans and peas this year, very productive) but melons are one of those that makes me wonder why I was growing so many tomatoes and such for so long? There easy I guess and just so common but recently Ive become obsessed with planting fruit trees and just doing more I guess 🤷 Yes, we share that enthusiasm! Glad your staying patient and having a good year! Please keep me updated on how those turn out, you’ve inspired me to try some new exotic top shelf full-size melons next year, Im gonna wait…it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to pull off an indoor grow of melons? But theres always some crazy sum bitch out there who would ruin the basement

[Dendro]

Got rained out today so took advantage of the cool weather and handled some business…

[ColeLennon]

gotta luv a good haircut

[ShiskaberrySavior]

Excellent thread great looking plants I wish you good luck with your harvest.

[Dendro]

Damn, this place is jumpin tonight, just saw your grow @ColeLennon, damn bro! Looking good! Nice and tight. Great selection of cultivars, doing them justice brother. Im gonna figure out how to follow…or Ill just come mosy over from time to time, definitely killin it!
Here are some more highlights from the day over this way…this girl is tryin my patience on the light dep…took two more colas a day or two ago and found two unintentional beans, and since I dont know who the father(one of two, so should be easy to identify) is or even the mother’s background, this one is a real mystery…

And this was todays harvest, not too shaby, just tryn to make it look like I know what Im doing…

Damn, the weekend flew by, not like it changes much around here but still, got a lot done, just not the things I was planning on, guess thats life…See you all tomorrow, very grateful to have seen so many other grows, gardens, and just learned alot from everyone here already, I thought that all I needed was my own garden, but Ive quickly realized that its not as much fun by yourself and sometimes its just not wise to have everyone and there cousins over to the grow house ya know? But this here place is a Growers Paradise Blessed to have found it and much appreciation to the eyes in the sky who make this all happen

[ColeLennon]

Right on man tight as hell

[Dendro]

Thank you guys for the support!
I was just hitting the sack after last nights post and yalls positivity was truely a blessing and a big encouragement to keep at it. Good looking out Cole and @ShiskaberrySavior, looking forward to seeing more of what you guys got going on, I’ve already seen some amazing work of both of yours around here. May your harvests be grand!

I hope all my friends here are safe and having a good one today! Went out this morning to check on yesterdays work and I’d really appreciate any ideas or forecasts on what these clones on the end are going to end up looking like, at this point they are definitely over 6ft and still haven’t hit their full stride, these are now getting out of my league, I keep having the feeling that they need more support, they were both topped but got bigger than I planned so doing what I can…the usual, twine, poles, and I just did the last clean up, going to leave them alone for a week or two before doing anything else, unless something presents itself, which it always does, anyway, sorry for the ramble, you guys know what’s up…today’s highlights include…a hanging melon…

I guess I planted some cantaloupe or something similar but I thought it was a cucumber so now its all wrapped up in the middle…might have to place some “shelves” of some type under them for support, a hanging mesh basket or something…and, yeah, plants are growing inches daily at this point…

this Ginger Grant under the cage is abit more manageable but shes starting to go crazy in stretch as well, probably should have added a second layer, Ive seen some great ideas on others threads, something tells me I better get crackin’!

her and the Don got alittle closer than I would have liked, next year we’re gonna try for one tree in each 4 x 4.
Hang in there everyone, we’ll get through this Monday in no time, we have to go into town today, doctors and all that. Cant wait to be back on the farm.

[Herrsquidward]

Very cool. We’ve got a bunch of sassafras and sparkleberries on the side of the mountain. We also have a huge basket oak growing near the porch. My wife and I also like looking for interesting plants everywhere we go. We even transplanted numerous dewberry plants into a raised bed we built for that very purpose.
There is so much to see anywhere in the world.

[Dendro]

Thanks for checking in my dude! I really like to hear about whats happening down south, my family and I moved to a military base down on the panhandle back in '00 or so. And even though I lived down there, Ive never heard of sparklebarries before, you keep introducing me to new things, so please, bring it on! Dewberrys are a new one for me too. Are they edible? You got it right when you said how much there is to see on this planet. The world is an astoundingly huge place and almost everywhere has its upsides and down sides. I was lucky to have seen so much of it, but its still just a mere fraction of what there is to possibly see. I really enjoy any area that has multiple changes in the local terrain and weather patterns but some locations on this earth are almost too beautiful to describe.
Like Morrocoy, Venezuela…an area of absolutely breathtaking Island views full of mangroves and 5ft deep crystal clear water full of every type of neon tropical fish and many other interesting local fauna. Hermit crabs walk freely anywhere one looks and there are coconut trees popping out like full time umbrellas, which underneath, the talented locals will cook huge pots of soup/stew and people will camp out on the beach and party for days…we visited there a few times when we lived outside of Caracas for around four years when I was young. Though I was born in Rancho Cordova, California, growing up we lived in Cambridge, England as well as a short time in Panama, along with longer stations in Newport News, Va,… Columbus OH, Little Rock, AR,… Navarre, Fl and none of that includes all the concerts, road trippin, and basically being an all out rollin stone.
Just so thankful to have finally settled down with my woman and the dogs for just long enough to feel at peace, here and there. Life moving around is great but it eventually gets draining to say the least. It sounds like you have a real nice spot there and have plenty of interesting creatures and plants to keep yall occupied. Waiting for pictures brother! Hope all is well with the garden and life! to All​:call_me_hand:

[Dendro]

Call me hand? Lol… whatever that means…

[Herrsquidward]

Dewberries are similar to blackberries. In fact, I used to call the “ground blackberries” because they grow so close to the ground. They taste better than regular blackberries, but they don’t flower and fruit nearly as much, and the flowering window is much shorter. The sparkleberries are basically huckleberries, and it seems huckleberries are blueberries adapted to a hot climate. We also have a persimmon fruiting in our yard. I’m hoping they draw in deer this fall. I don’t know how you feel about hunting, but for what it’s worth, it’s just harvesting food. Plus, when I get a deer, the parts I don’t eat feed the local foxes, coyotes and bobcats, all of which are welcome and safe as long as they don’t hurt the dogs; I don’t hunt anything I can’t eat.

[Dendro]

Nice thanks for the info. I really dig your use of local species, looked up those two and they look interesting. Will have to look into what other local berries we have here in Va, using two so far. Thanks for more inspiration!
And no, Im not against hunting, as long as it’s done properly and not for sport. I’ve done some fishing, though Im not a big fan unless its to actually eat them. Definitely thinking of raising chickens or some other birds next year. I dont have a problem with living a good natural life, that is the goal here. There are always the die hards in either direction, I try to stay as balanced as possible. Have certainly changed my opinion on life and how to live it, over the years. Im not sure if right or wrong actually exist outside of our own consciousness, though I’m pretty sure thats precisely why we are conscious…we must continue to develop within ourselves to unite the world/universe/multi-verse or simply wait until our own death to start over again? Have probably just read too many books, watched to much tv, movies, and internet

And there I went, will try to get this train back on track. Hope you and all the fam here are having a blessed day

[Herrsquidward]

Those damn horned worms create a dilemma for me. Giant moths are really cool, and I’d like to see more of them, but not at the expense of my tomatoes and peppers. In the last few days, we’ve had to check a pair of Roma tomato plants a lot. They had just begun to recover from an infestation of horned worms when they were infested yet again. Every day we’ve been picking numerous small ones off that tomato, which is right next to some peppers. Damn, the bugs here in the South are merciless.

[Dendro]

I can relate, sorry to hear that they are still giving you guys problems. They are the worst because they eat the whole damn plant, especially the tops! They’ve never touched my cannabis or my peppers but they love the tomatoes and we’re just now getting them like hell’s let loose the hounds…I agree on the dilemma, they dont seem to be endangered or threatened and they are a huge nuisance outdoors, people have no problem taking care of indoor pests, and I really wish I knew a better way to get rid of them, but these bastards go in the compost bin out this way…they are just too devastating to the garden…got to look for their poop, then follow the trail…found one around five inches long today, ate every single top of this cherry tomato…

luckily this is the “graveyard” and Ive always got something growing out of this old decayed mulch pile, which btw, is great to use as a top dress every couple of weeks, very mild, and just keeps breaking down, one of my big secrets, if I have any at all… its got to be full of beneficial bacteria and insects, been sitting here for years and everything that grows out of it gets extremely lush and full. Packed with worms too boot. Just used alittle here and there at first but now Ill dig deep into the decayed part and add a real fresh smelling composted layer to my buckets and beds.
The garden was feeling pretty Zen this morning…

Ok, so this stuff right here is down right scary…it started as this wierd white “web”, almost looked like roots but obviously its something else, this um THING literally moved from the bottom of the tank all the way to the top over a couple of days and now its just sitting there…Ive looked around online and there are just too many “white web-like” growths to decifer through, its now appeared in a few different areas of the tank, I do proper maintenance but I dont keep track of all the different levels of this and that anymore, there are live plants in all the tanks and that really helps to keep them cycling proper, a few water changes here and there, low amounts of food and they usually do just fine for years…this one is new for me…no real damage so far, but I wish I knew what this was before somehow accidentally coming in contact with it…

[Dendro]

So that was weird…the thing vanished over night…and Im sure you guys are just dying to see and hear more about the thing but Ill just have to keep you updated when it makes another appearance …so to start today of right, lets step back into the garden, I have been placing some small rough rocks under the new melons to keep them from getting swallowed by the grass and helo with drainage…

looks like we’ll have one more try on those melons!
Everything else is exploding with growth right along with them…

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This girl is looking better everyday but I think Im gonna grab her tonight before any mold sets in, have had her on a outdoor manual schedule of 10/14 for the last two weeks, 9weeks flower all together, mostly outside, syarted indoors, vegged for two weeks. Gave me over 100 beans from two different fathers, I love this girl, sad to take her down forever , but her beans will be the next I pop Going to do a nice clean easy indoor grow next, already have my equipment set up and ready to go, three cheap LEDs in a 2 x 2 but we get fairly decent results, so if there are any LED doubters left…

Lets go Green!

[Dendro]

Let me try those two again…I believe it was looking down on the six footer…

And the lady coming down tonight, I kind of messed up her schedule a few days ago, got right back on it but I dont want any unintentional seeds from her…

Hope these work, Im fresh out of time and patience for now…till next time

[FieldEffect]

Nice melons, @Dendro

I like the drainage rocks. I’m pushing my patience not havesting one of my melons. I’ve got a bad case of squash bugs and have unfortunately had to purchase some Sevin (Cypermethrin) insecticide to save the watermelon crop. I’d been trying to deal with everything naturally, which has worked on every other garden pest this year. They’ve already killed all the squashes, the pumpkin vine, and are starting on the watermelons. I’ve tried everything else, manually picking off eggs, beetles,and the watermelon vines are where the line gets drawn. Bastards. Going to spray them tonight.

It’s looking nice, good job! Tasty looking buds!

This is the one I really want to pick.

These assholes have crossed the line now. They are incredibly prolific. I’ve killed hundreds, thousands of eggs and there is more everytime I go look. Sundown brings their fate via the garden sprayer.

[Dendro]

Oh bro, that’s crazy! I got hit with them today too, noticed a few immature goblins on the cucumber and then a whole little colony on the squash, Ive had the same experience with them, nothing eats them, they scatter so fast its hard to hand pick them, I think one or two applications of the real shit is totally acceptable with them if you want to save your babies. Anything for that beautiful melon, a real beauty , what type is that? How are the stems looking?..no, I dont blame you on the seven…its been a last resort for me too. You should be able to apply without getting too much near the root zone, thats what I try to do at least, haven’t had to go that route this year, but last year we lost all our mini pumpkins because of them. Got to save those melons! I would think your probably close at least. Those Squash Bugs are Satans Spawn. Super creepy little fuckers, and they scury! Gonna try not to have nightmares about alien invasions tonight. We’ll see whats left of the garden in the morning! I wish you luck, that melon is Amazing , gonna be delicious
Definitely doing some big ones here next year, we have a big field that Im getting tired of mowing but would like to figure out a better way to deal with those bastards first as well. Im guessing crop rotation is a must for them. Certainly going to do some more reading on the gray freaks reproduction cycle. Try and find a weak spot? Please lmk how they respond and good luck…

[FieldEffect]

Well, it definately seemed like that worked. Mass death of devil bugs.

Crop rotation is no joke, but that alone won’t prevent them. I grew watermelon and cucumber in the same bed last year because it’s just a good bed, south-facing with full exposure all day. I’m growing a few other varieties of melons in a totally new bed about 75’ away - still infected, although less severe. We had a problem with them last year, and I torched the bed this spring as I was reading about how to keep them from coming back [didn’t work]. Talking to other locals, they almost just take it as a fact of life that they’re going to need to use insecticide for the curumbits. I’m looking forward to sunup and going out to see what happened overnight after spraying.

They are these: https://www.rareseeds.com/ali-baba-watermelon

I’m now 83-87 days, within the 80-90 window (depending on whether I count from transplant or germination). That baba may be ripe, there are a few others on the vine too a little less far along. I’ll do some better looking at the signs today. I don’t know if it’s like cannabis - where the flower times from breeders seldom align with reality, or if garden seeds are more reliable.