First Winter Melon and Kabocha Harvest

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.

Kabocha Fruit Forming

My Kabocha plant has successfully formed it's first fruit!

You can see the fruit in the right center of the picture to the right. You can also see two fruit that aborted.

I have had a hard time getting any fruit to develop on this Kabocha plant. The Kabocha plant started producing flowers 6 weeks ago (see this blog entry), but it has taken this long to produce any real fruit.

The problem is that the plant produced many more female flowers than male flowers, so when a female flower is ready to be pollinated, there aren't any male flowers to supply the pollen.

I should start getting a lot more fruit to develop as the ratio of male flowers to female flowers is starting to increase.

Below is a picture of how many Kabocha plant looks. It has climbed onto the Trellis I built quite nicely.

Climbing Kabocha and Winter Melon

My Kabocha plant has climbed onto the new Trellis that I built last week.

These two Winter Melon plants have not grown as fast as the Kabocha.  

Still, the plants have climbed to a height of 5 feet.

Trellis and Vertical Gardening

I like to grow Winter Melon and Kabocha plants.  Unfortunately, these types of plants are vines that like to sprawl over as much area as possible.

My lot size is relatively large for Southern California, but the area is still fairly limited in terms of growing space for my Garden.

In order to increase the growing area for the Winter Melon and Kabocha plants, I use trellises.  

I grow the Winter Melon and Kabocha plants against the retaining wall that seperates my lot from my neighbor's lot.  I can then lean the trellis against the retaining wall.

One benefit of using a trellis is that it keeps the fruit from laying on the ground.  This prevents critters from taking a bite of the fruit. 

This is especially true when the fruit is young and immature.  The skin of a young Winter Melon fruit is quite fragile and I have lost many fruit to being eaten by animals.  As the fruits get bigger, the skin gets tougher and animals are no longer a problem

I have built the trellises from steel garden stakes that I buy from the local Nursery. 

 I have tried prefabricated trellises, but they are too expensive, too small, and too fragile.

The picture on above shows my trellises against the retaining wall.

The picture to the the right shows my Kaboocha plant climbing up the trellis.  

The black trellis is made of metal and was purchased a while ago before I started making my own trellis.

Building a Trellis

Today, I  added to my Trellis system for  growing Winter Melons and Kabocha plants.

My current Trellis system ends right before the back of my Garage.  There is a 6 feet separation between the Garage and the retaining wall (see picture to the right).  

 I have tried letting the Kabocha and Winter Melons vines continue to grow into this area.  But this area gets so little sunshine due to the shade provided by the Garage that vines grow too slowly and don't produce much fruit.

This year, I am putting a trellis to wall off this shaded area.

 

I use steel garden stakes to create the trellis.  

I had several 7' and 8' long stakes that I had used last year to support my Cherry Tomato plants.

This year, I am using 8' tall Texas Tomato Cages and no longer need the stakes.

I lined 8 stakes on the ground, each 1 foot apart from the next stake (see picture to the right)

For the cross section, I use 6' long steel garden stakes.

I use 1/8" braided nylon rope to tie the stakes togehter.

I use nylon rope because it is strong, secure and easy to remove if I need to break down the trellis.

I tied 6' stakes to the top and to the bottom of the 7' and 8' long stakes.

I then moved the frame structure to the opening right in front of the shaded area (see picture to the right)

I then continued to tie 6' stakes to the frame.  Each 6' stake is about 1' apart from the next 6' stake.

The picture to the right shows the finished product.

I used 5 gallon containers filled with soil to support the trellis and prevent it from falling down.

You can see from the picture that the Kabocha plant is very close to the new trellis.  

Next week, the Kabocha will start probably start climbing onto the new trellis.

First Kabocha Flower

Today,  my Kabocha plant produces it's first flowers.

The flower at center of the picture to the right is a female flower.  

The flower at bottom left corner is a male flower. 

It is very unusual for me to find a male and female pair of flowers.

In the past, I have noticed that the plants will produce only male flowers at the beginning before it starts producing female flowers.  When female flowers start to form, there are usually a lot more male flowers than female flowers.

The picture to the right shows the plant in the evening of the same day.  See the flowers have already faded. 

You can see the tiny fruit at the base of the female flower.

If the bees did their job pollenating the female flower the tiny fruit will grow.  If the female flower was not pollenated, then the tiny fruit will fall off in a few days.

Hopefully, bees will bring pollen from the male flower to the female flower and I will have a Kabocha fruit as a result.

Winter Melon and Kabocha Update

My five Winter Melon and one Kabocha plant have been in the ground for three weeks now. 

The growth has been slow.  

Only my Kabocha plant is growing well (see picture to the right)

One of the Winter Melon plants is in bad shape.  

Most of the leaves from this Winter Melon plant have gotten eaten by something.

I don't think this plant will make it,  so I have started another set of Winter Melon seeds.

The weather has gotten to the point where I can just set seeds outside, without the need of a grow light.  The seeds germinate in about a week.

These seedlings (see picture to the right) will be ready to transplant in another month.

Seed Starting Round 3 Scorecard

Well the APS-6 units made a big difference in Winter Melon and Kabocha seed germination!  The APS-6 cells are twice as deep as the APS-24 cells, and it looks like the bigger seeds need the extra depth. 

Out of 24 cells (4 APS-6 units), I got 14 seeds to germinate (58%).  However, 1 APS-6 unit did not germinate any seeds.  It could have been that Algae got to this APS-6 unit before seeds could germinate, or it could have been that I somehow forgot to put any seeds in this unit.  Discounting the seeds in this APS-6 unit, I got 14 out of 18 cells to germinate for a germination rate of 78%.

Next year, I will only use the APS-24 units for Cherry Tomato seeds and use the APS-6 units for the Winter Melon and pumpkin seeds.

Seed Starting

Today, I started my seeds for my Winter Melons, Pumpkins and Cherry Tomatoes. I hope to have the plants in the ground by March 1.  My goal is to have Cherry Tomatoes ready to eat by Memorial Day, the Winter Melons ready by 4th of July and the Pumpkins ready in August.

I use the APS seedstarting kit from  Gardener's Supply Company . I also use the Germinating Mix from Gardener's Supply Company. I have tried other seed starting mixes but I always go back to this Germinating Mix. I find that finely crushed vermiculite mixed with sphagnum peat in this mix gives me the  best medium for starting seeds.

I have one APS-24 and four APS-6 units. I used the APS-24 for starting seeds and I transfer to the APS-6 units when the seedlings emerge. I then transfer to either 4-inch square or 6-inch diameter round containers before finally putting the plants into the ground. I could start the seeds in the APS-6 units but I find that I use too much of the Germinating Mix when I do this. Instead I used the cheaper soil-less potting mix that I can get at my local gardening store for the APS-6 units.

I planted 2 Chinese Pumpkin seeds, 2 Kabocha seeds, 10 Winter Melon Seeds, and 10 Cherry Tomato seeds. The APS-24 is arranged into 24 cells with 6 cells in each of 4 rows. This is my seed arrangement in the APS-24:

This is where each seed came from:

Sun Sugar	Cherry Tomato	www.naturalgardening.com
Sun Cherry ES	Cherry Tomato	www.evergreenseeds.com
Sun Gold	Cherry Tomato	www.naturalgardening.com
Sugar Snack	Cherry Tomato	www.naturalgardening.com
SuperSweet 100	Cherry Tomato	www.tmseeds.com
Mother	Kabocha	My Mother (Asian Supermarket)
Chinese Pumpkin	Pumpkin	My Own Seed (Grew Last Year)
Long Melon	Winter Melon	My Own Seed (Grew Last Two Years)
Mother-In-Law	Winter Melon	My Mother-In-Law (Asian Supermarket)
Oblong #114	Winter Melon	www.evergreenseeds.com
Long Giant #386	Winter Melon	www.evergreenseeds.com
Round #287	Winter Melon	www.evergreenseeds.com

I have no pictures for the Winter Melon seeds from my Mother-in-Law.  She got the seeds from a melon she bought from a local Asian Supermarket.  Similarly, I do not have pictures for the Kabocha seeds that my Mother gave me (also from an Asian Supermarket).  I guess I will find out how they look this summer when the plants start producing fruit.

I took seeds from one of the Chinese Pumpkins I grew this past year.  I also am using seeds from a Winter Melon that I grew for the past two years.  Both the Chinese Pumpkin and the Winter Melon plants are prolific producers.

I added 6 parts water to 9 parts of the Germinating mix into a large container.  I used an 8 oz plastic yogurt cup as my scoop.  I used 15  scoops of Germinating mix and 10 scoops of distilled water.  I use distilled water because I want to make as sterile an environment for the seeds to germinate as possible.  

Even with this, I have problems with Algae growing in the APS units.  The problem with the APS units is that all of the cells in the unit share a common water supply.  Consequently, if Algae forms in one cell, it quickly moves to adjacent cells.  This is one reason why I transfer the seedlings into another container as quickly as possible.  I also wash the APS units with bleach between uses.

I fill each cell in the APS-24 with the germinating mix upto 3/4ths full.  I then drop the seed in the middle of the cell and fill the rest of the cell with germinating mix.  As you can tell from the picture below, the Chinese Pumpkin and Kabocha seeds are quite large in comparison to the cell.  This is the first time I have tried to grow seeds this large in the APS-24.  Hopefully, it will turn out well.

I use a grow light that I bought from  Better Grow Hydro .  It is a Tek-Light System with four T5 bulbs each four feet long.  I chose a T5 system because it gives the best light spectrum for the amount of energy that it uses.  Each T5 bulb uses 54 watts.  

The seeds need to be in a warm environment otherwise they will not germinate.   I keep the grow light in a storage room that is detached from the main house.  The room has no insulation, so at night it can get very cold.  I keep the grow light on 12 hours a day, from 7:30pm to 7:30am.  This way the heat from the bulbs helps keep the APS-24  unit warm at night.  Otherwise, I would need to use a heating mat to keep the unit at a nice temperature.

As you can see from the picture below, I elevate the APS-24 unit so that it is within an inch of the light.  This maximizes the both the energy in the light spectrum and also the heat given off by the bulbs.

I get about a 50% germination rate with the APS-24.  It typically takes a 7 to 10 days for seedlings to emerge.  Hopefully, by this time next week, I will have some seedlings.