((Serious Gardening))

[GhostRider65]

Hey everyone I'm new to this thread, but have been gardening forever....
A few years back I found Baker Creek Seeds, and love everything I have ever grown from them, So this year I tried the Banana Melons, and I'm not sure how to tell how ripe they are? Has anyone here ever grown them? What color are they when ready to pick? can they be picked a bit early like you can with Cantaloupes or water melons? I ask because we are getting frost tonight, and I want to pick them very soon, if not today, snow will be falling here before long, since October starts tomorrow, it won't be long at all. any help would be awsum and I can take a picture of them if need be. TY all Kim

 

[SteveBaz]

Sure have done my share of gardening both in soil and in water. Water requires much more work!!@

 

[bacpacker]

The bannana melons I grew (I will asssume yours are the same) turn kind of orangeish when they are ripe. They will usualyy begin softening as well. That is one of my favorite melons.

 

[GhostRider65]

They look yummy and I can't wait to try them, just want them to be ripe........... They are a greenish gray and starting to yellow but not ripe yet and I don't know what to do???
If I pick them all and they won't ripen after picking I won't even get to try them..........arggggggg this has been a yucky year, late spring didn't plant till June......then tons of rain, and hotter than hot, now were back to rain rain rain, and cold......... I expect snow way before normal this year because the weather has been so screwy here. Usually it holds off until my Birthday end of Oct. I'll bet we have snow before the middle of the month. gggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So does anyone know if I puck them will they eventually get ripe in the house??? Thanks ahead Kim

 

[feather and mountain man]

Hey all been away for awhile. Got a question though is anyone else having trouble getting fall crops to grow. Maybe just my area but not much luck with lettuce, turups.

 

[NanaKat]

Quote:
Fall potatoes fell victim to the blister bugs. Serious drought robbed the soil of moisture here and seeds are just now beginning to germinate on the turnips. Letuce is seeded and not up yet.

 

[Illia]

Hey all

So I decided to join this thread, . . .





warning - lots of pics

Now before looking at these photos just remember, I live in a place where it is hard to grow anything beyond potatoes and leafy greens.

It never gets hot here, rarely is sunny, and the season is short. But! With a good big greenhouse one can do magic. . . .



In the greenhouse I currently grow Corn, Beans, Bananas, Figs, tomatoes, Tomatilloes, Peppers, Litchi Tomatoes, Summer & Winter Squash, Watermelons, assorted American European & Asian Melons, and Ground Cherries.


This is looking into the greenhouse - Less than 50% of it is in use. The water tank in back is for future Aquaponics. Yes, there's weeds on the ground to the right.

This is our Black Cherry tomato plant. It's even bigger now, after a week since I took this photo. To the left and behind it are other heirloom tomatoes, but this baby is creeping and sagging all over the place.

This here is another example of crazy tomatoes - This is a Speckled Roman, who now stands over 7 feet tall. Again, photo was taken a week or two ago and things grow a lot!

A pool of beans, Jelly Melons, and Moon & Stars Watermelons with some tomatoes edging around it. We use kiddy pools a lot here because they're a cheap and great way to get raised beds in the greenhouse.

The beans from that pool. They're Dragon Tongue beans, very tender green beans with a beautiful splash of purple over them. I have several pools filled with beans and Cukes (melons or squash) and each pool has a special kind of green bean or dry bean.

Corbaci Peppers. Despite their awesome appearance, these are candy-sweet and excellent fried!

This is one of our Banana plants, yep, Bananas. This young fella here now stands at a little over 6 feet tall and grows about 6 inches every week. I'm expecting a blossom any week now. At the moment it is sprouting up several young "pups" whom I've been transplanting now and then. I often sell the babies to others so they too can enjoy homegrown bananas. Since Bananas are seedless, at least, most of the varieties out there are - Propagation is done through the suckers that come up from the mother plant.

And here are one of its buddies, a "Blue Java" or "Icecream" Banana. They'll grow to about 12 feet tall and produce some icy blue to dusty whitish yellow colored Bananas. I have three of these. No babies yet though.

Green Sausage tomatoes - Awesome color, neat shape, amazing flavor.

A little sample of some awesome heirloom tomatoes.

More sample - The white ones on the bottom have an amazing and most favorable flavor.

A day's collection of some heirloom tomatoes and peppers

Green Grape tomatoes - One of my three FAVORITES.

A most delicious "Green Nutmeg" melon, don't let the color fool ya - This baby is 10x better in taste than a normal melon!!

An out of this world sweet and tropical tasting Orangeglo Watermelon. Who'd think one can grow Watermelons in the PNW? And my vines are still going strong

A beautiful Melon de Luneville.

A plate of Paul Robeson tomato slices.

A plate of Pineapple tomato slices.

So, I guess I consider myself serious.

I'll continue planting and growing and harvesting through the winter. Right now I'm mainly focusing on tomatoes, corn, beans, and winter squash. I'm expecting my Bananas to fruit anywhere from next month to sometime this spring. I also have a dwarf Fig tree growing in the greenhouse, the baby is growing rampantly and already gave me a fig on its first year.

As mentioned earlier we'll also be doing some Aquaponics. Not much updates yet on that, but, hopefully soon.



Outside the greenhouse it hasn't frosted yet, so I've got a lot of greens growing as well as plenty of Blue Potatoes and a couple weird random volunteer Zucchinis. By weird I mean they are shaped like such and taste like such, but start out a lime green color then go yellow, and most have slight ridges and little bumps on them.

 

[Carols Clucks]

Illa, you have a great green house and collection!

Hope your banana does well! We have 2 with green bananas on them, but one has had nice bananas for almost a year now and they are still not ripe! Ugh! The stalk is right in the walk way and I really want to cut it down once the bananas are ripe.

 

[Kassaundra]

Illia how do you heat your green house through the winter?

 

[Illia]

Radiator heaters. We have some extension cords that travel on into the greenhouse for such. It doesn't get very cold here in the winter though, but when it does, we'll heat it that way. Usually primarily at night. We've only had this greenhouse up since late spring, but, so far winter is already about here and it seems we might have a warm one. (unlike most places we rarely get snow, rarely get temps below 32, and most of the time it's just cool but severe wind and rainstorms)

Carols Clucks - Where do you live? How were the temps when the banana had its fruit? Bananas take a long time to actually ripen, but require day temps at least 74 degrees to do well.