Sorry about the funny characters in front of one half pound. Something funny going on there.

I usually stick with 'Crimson Sweet'(15-25) each season, but try one more variety in my search for the best flavor in my area. This past year I grew some 'Moon & Stars', which grow a little larger (25-35), but has a lot of waste with the very thick skin it grows. Taste and sweetness were pretty close to the Crimson variety, and with the erratic weather we had between dry and wet, I might grow it again to give it a fair test. I would ask you, from that list, which would you recommend I try for next season?

The oval melons probably are just a bit easier to raise than the longer ones, but if you have no trouble with getting good size, I suggest Sangria. . Raspa and Carmen are more simular to Crimson Sweet and can be very good if they size up nicely...course that is true for all watermelons.
If you want something different and open pollinated, try Orangeglo.

Wayne: Thanks for the report. Very nice work. It's hard testing lots of varieties because they really need to be spread out. I can see I need the Twilly catalog. They have lots of triploids, way more than Willhite. Guess I'll try Sangria and a few others next year.

This seemed like a bad year for my Starbrite. Yield has been superior but brix seemed a point or two lower than last year. Rojo Grande had the brix but is very seedy and just didn't yield much. Raspa didn't yield a single fruit off two plants. Starbrite is headed for more than two hundred lbs per plant.

Tought year here for all summer crops. Hot and super dry. Charlene, Greystone were the best performing diploids. Striped Peacock did pretty well in the Op category. Golden Honey, best performing yellow flesh but like all the green melons Sunscald was a major problem.
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When do you plant your melons? I planted mine June 1 (sugar baby) and I only have 1 melon that might ripen before frost. We had a hot summer, and I thought I'd get a banner crop of melons. But, I got 1 cantelope and am still waiting for my 1 watermelon. Ugh! What am I doing wrong?

michele:

You've got to plant earlier. In Z6a about May first. In fact you are early enough to grow the large watermelon. Wayne is zone 5 and grows any and all types of watermelon. He does start his plants inside I believe. I plant outside early under a mini greenhouse and have 20-40 lb melons from June thru October. This year I'm looking at 2500 lbs off 12 plants with an ave weight of 25-30 lbs.

I had the same weather conditions as farmerd, and the only thing that saved me was my irrigation system. I haven't had any rain in two months, and lost at least 30 melons that split in the field. I had good results with earli-dew honey dew and sugar queen and super 45 cantelopes. Below is my earlier posting for my watermelons.

When I ordered my seeds from Willhite's, I was going to try
Starbrite, but the melon guy at Willhite's talked me into
trying Big Stripe instead. I must say I've been pleasantly surprised with BS. I don't weigh melons, but you can generally get a feel for weight. I don't prune or remove melons, and I got a very good yield from BS. It's a very sweet melon, and sizes down very well, without losing quality or sweetness. Mine ranged from 10 to 30 lbs.
Another good producer that I tried at the suggestion of the melon guy at Willhite's was Gold Strike. Excellent melon, just as good as, if not better than Orange Fleshed Tendersweet. It also sizes down very well. without losing quality or sweetness. My other good producers were Orangeglo, Verona, AU Producer, which I like much better than Crimson Sweet, Legacy, Wilson's Sweet and Sweet Princess. The only poor producer that I had was Mountain Sweet Yellow.

I started some of the watermelons on April 20th and transplanted them outside on May 10th with plastic cloches on them for a few days. also they had IRT 100 plastic on the ground for these early ones. A second bunch was sown in early May and some had plastic and some didn't.

I expect to get some early melons by the 20th or so of July.

Anyone want to weigh in on favorite small watermelons?

I have trouble eating those huge ones (I got a 53.5 lb Orangeglo this year!). Or is the wisdom that the larger melons taste better?

Many of the big melons do not size down well. Orangeglo,Black Diamond etc. have to get fairly large to have good flavor. Some newer ones like Crimson Sweet will size down and be good at less than 20 lbs. Also some of the "icebox" melons which run around 10 lbs can be very good. Mickylee is my favorite, but Wilson Sweet and Sugar Baby are good. Yellow Doll , Red Doll etc among the hybrids are also good.
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Here is a link that might be useful: My Watermelons

bart,

Even on small ones the larger small ones are almost always better!! A 15 pound Tiger Baby can be superb but a 5 pounder likely not very good.

bart1: I had trouble also until I figured out a solution to those 30+ lb melons. I cut them in half lengthwise and put the best part in a large tupperware container. Now I can get rid of all the rind in one fell swoop and the 6-8 lbs of good flesh easily fits in the frig. Problem solved. I hate the small seedy melons.

Fruit-

Did some research on long term storage of watermelon. Sounds like room temp is the best (uncut of course!). I have one in the kitchen going on two weeks now. God i hope it doesn't go bad!

I love Yellow Doll of the icebox size. Not growing it this year; the household prefers the seedless. I'm only growing a short row of Crimson Sweet in case all the cucumis melons die of the many ills they're heir to.