Today, I picked my first Winter Melons and a Kabocha.It's been 3 and 1/2 months since I first transplanted the Winter Melon and Kabocha seedings into the ground (see this blog entry).
Fruits started forming on the plants about 3 weeks ago. By picking the first fruits off of the plants, I encourage the plants to devote their energies to develop more leaves and more flowers, instead of developing a few super large fruits.
There are many more smaller Winter Melons hanging on the vines. These 5 Winter Melon represent the biggest fruits on the plants. The nice thing about Winter Melons this size is that the seeds have not yet formed and are edible. If I wait much longer, I will have to remove the seeds prior to cooking the Winter Melons.
The picture below shows the Winter Melon vines hanging on the trellis I made. The Winter Melon fruit hanging in the middle is the same one I blogged about 2 weeks ago.
The vines are now over 10 feet long. I expect them to reach 50+ feet by the time the season is over in about 4 months.
Posts
Do you know of a good place to buy vegetable plants in Orange County (around Coto / Ladera Ranch)? I can find seeds everywhere but no luck with starter plants.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about Orange County, but I saw Asian Vegetable seedlings (Winter Melon, Kabocha, etc) at San Gabriel Nursery in February and March. You can contact them and see if they know any Nursery in OC that carries similar stock. They can be reached at (626) 286-3782 or
ReplyDeletewww.sgnursery.com.
How can you tell if the kabocha is ready to be removed from it's vine?
ReplyDeleteThe fruit is ready to harvest when the stem withers.
ReplyDelete