You're description of Honda is the description of the taste of an Asian melon - I have no idea what happened to the Golden Sweet. They do taste a whole lot like a bland cucumber, and then turn sweet at the end, but maybe yours decided that they wanted to continue to express their "inner cucumberness". I'll try Honda next year - At least with the others, the skin is so delicate that you can just wash it off and eat the whole thing. Would that be true with Honda as well?

Mine never made it out of the batters box this year. I was lucky to get half a dozen cucumbers the whole season. But I did learn something new re cucumbers. Take 3 or 4 cucumbers, peel, slice, and put in large bowl in the fridge and sprinkle heavily with red wine vinegar. Cover, wait until tomorrow, and see if you don't finish the entire bowl in one setting.

Add a few slices of onion to those sliced cucumbers with vinegar before you put them in the fridge (for those who like onion), and they are even better!

My melons didn't even find the ballpark. None of the cantaloupes even germinated. A single Sugar Baby watermelon plant grew and was almost immediately swamped by the zucchini plants. It vined its way out into the sunshine and put out some blooms, but not a single actual watermelon, even though I spotted at least two female blossoms.

I'm so aggravated at my broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower that I'm thinking of giving up on it for good. The cauliflower and two of the Brussels sprouts died early on along with a couple of the broccoli. I finally began to get a good head on the Nutribud when bugs attacked it. I spray with either Pyola or Spinosad twice a week, but the bugs come back. I assume they're aphids. They're caked all over the plant, especially inside leaf curls and down in the center where the head is supposed to form. No brassica this year.

The zucchini, finally, did wonderfully this year. Want one? Take two!

The tomatoes did quite well. I've at least 100 tomatoes on my dozen plants. But they're all still GREEN!

I harvested some potatoes that had died back in early August. The rest are still green and healthy and clinging to life. I'm hoping that the tubers are as impressive, but it's been my experience that foliage growth and tuber growth don't have much to do with each other.

Oh, I have 3-4 bell peppers forming. And I harvested 245 peaches this year.

I had planted some carrots, spinach, and lettuce in a side bed that doesn't get much sun. They didn't do well and then the bugs got to them, so I gave up. Yesterday I was over there, and lo and behold I found about half a dozen carrot plants growing. Whadya know.

I got a lot of garlic, but most of the bulbs were quite small. I got maybe a whole serving's worth of snow pea pods. They were quite tasty, though. Next year I'll plant more.

Unfortunately for those still left, the seasonal clock is ticking down....

Here are my misses:

I totally forgot to relocate the tomatoes when the sun shifted. I don't know how I forgot, I just did. When I realized they had slowed down tremendously, I finally remembered to move them to a spot with more sun.

I should have paid more attention to plant-height when I filled my second bed. I put an early photo of it up and Skybird suggested I make more room. I did not as I was lazy and liked the way it looked. And now they are all over the place and I had to tie up several shrubs to keep others from being crowded out.

I bought a Kaitlin Ainsley rose and it is not happy. I usually spend forever (and ever) doing research before I buy, then I go to the shop and stick to my list. This was a "grab it because why not" kind of purchase and it seems very unhappy ever since I brought it home. Gosh, the red foliage is spectacular, though!!

Home runs:

I finally went to the neighbors yard--the most awesome yard style-wise and plant-wise in my opinion. I offered her some slips of my hardy roses and she gave me a bag of chocolate chip cookies!! We traded info and I got to see what worked well for her at what location. We have some similar sun areas and shade areas, so that helped.

Those Canadian Hardy roses are doing so well I'm beside myself!! The winner is the Morden Blush which was planted June of last year. At first I thought it might be tired from the dry and high winds at the end of '07, nope, totally happy. right now it is more than triple the size it was this spring and it is still full of beautiful blooms!! I stare out the window at it every day, then I go outside and gawk at it...every day!

Stuff learned:

I should not waste time starting seeds. I have killed every seed I have tried to start, including indoors and outdoors. The only seeds that have worked are the petunia seeds I haphazardly sprinkled into a pot outside last fall/winter. Gosh, three gorgeous white petunia plants all summer long, for "free"!

Food:

I love adding diced onion, chopped tomato and cucumber to plain yoghurt. I sometimes add chopped cilantro or mint and then I set it in the fridge for an hour and eat it up.

J

David, I don't know whether a person could eat the skin of a Honda melon, or not. That was the last of the 3 . . . The 1st was harvested too soon. The 2nd was a big surprise. I didn't think of anything but the whether I gotta ripe one with the 3rd. And, I did!

Had the last of the Honey Girls tonight. They've become a cherished treat. The rind went to the pullets. Those girls ate it right down to transparency.

Sweet onions make the world go round, Dee!

Lilacs, aphids are what it sounds like and they are really tuff to kill in those leaf folds. What do you think of a "non-heading" cabbage - bok choy? You might find it covers the bases fairly well.

I've raised Sugar Baby 2 years running . . . You know, I don't HAVE to have a seedless watermelon to be happy but . . . cripes, those things are a mouthful of seeds!

Speaking of seeds: Sorry you had trouble with your tiny "specks," J. You know, those petunia specks are probably the tiniest - which may be your sign for success.

Perhaps you could try some snapdragons next year. Don't laugh when you open the envelop if'n you do - they'll disappear! The roses are enuf reward for gardening skills, however. And, a helpful neighbor is better than money in the bank!

There I've gone and mixed my metaphors - gosh, you'd think I was on the floor of the House. "I intend to step up to the plate on this bill and grab the bull by the horns!"

Steve's digits
Their very capacity to master and retain such balderdash as constitutes their stock in trade is proof of their inferior mentality. ~ H. L. Mencken, In Defense of Women

Just looking at the 'o8 Johnny's catalog: they have a "Sun Jewel" Asian melon that looks a lot like Honda. The melon is described as "crisp" but "wonderfully sweet." The 68 days to maturity is the earliest of any (ANY!) listed in their melon section.

One page over, Johnny's lists Passport, showing it at 73 days. But, Passport was the earliest in my garden this year. Honda (from Evergreen Seed) is suppose to be "60-65 days after sowing" - that certainly wasn't true here with ripening pushed right up to the 1st frosts and the end of September.

Johnny's also claims that Passport will not be available in 2009. Yikes!! Either I'm goin' to find it elsewhere or their "Diplomat" better make a suitable substitute . . . Otherwise a loss of Passport would be a BIG cut in my melon patch, especially if we have another cold Spring! I'll be whiffing at the change-up pitch.

(Sorry, I tried too hard for that one. ;o)

digitS'

I'm not even gonna try to keep with the b-ball theme Digit, but here's my hits and misses. (Hey look - I sort of did!)

Misses:

Tomato positioning very bad this year. The slicers were overwhelmed by the cherry types.

Flower seeds - I fell behind in spring and packets of seeds that were supposed to be direct sown, never did.

Starting seeds indoors - in my first try, some things did ok, some not. Probably need more light. Certainly those that did well enough to get transplanted were very slow to get going.

Annuals in lasagne garden - did not do very well at tall for the most part. Maybe the layers weren't quite ready yet. Hope for better this year.

Melons - well I think I'm done trying. Have one "Crane" melon I'm waiting to ripen. Will devote the trellis to beans next year.

Not really a miss, but got to do a better job of planting lettuce seeds in succession.

Hits:

"October Skies" aster from Bluestone. (At least it was supposed to be October Skies, but it grew about twice the size described in catalog.) Fabulous! 3 plants grouped together are about 4' x 4' and 3' high. Covered with lovely lavender blossoms.

Dahlias - I bought 3 from the local nursery. They took a long time to get going, but are putting out spectacular flowers now. Next year though must cage them up early!

Scented geraniums - I bought 4 this year and loved them.

Chocolate Cherry tomatoes - so many compliments on them.

"Nelson" carrots - grew straight and long.

More red potatoes!! Love those.

There were a lot more hits... it's nice to put this down in writing and realize that it was a pretty good year after all, even though it took a while to really get going.

Alice

Here's an annual I had trouble with this year, Alice:

I have 2 minds about calendula. right brain: I like them when they've got those big yellow or orange marigold flowers. But, unlike a marigold, they don't stink.

left brain: When they make a thousand lateral buds and tiny blooms - who cares?!? One thing for sure, the plant itself isn't attractive enuf to be appreciated.

I guess I should go back to Pacific Beauties - 'cept their blooms would get so large that they'd flop over when wet. There seems to be a new trend with cals - all of Johnny's look this way, I don't really know what to call it. With another seed company, I fell for the hype on Neon - Pbththth!

Just need to make sure the darn things don't reseed and stage a comeback in '09.

d'S'

Steve, can you save the seeds from the melons?

My big hit, I'd call it a standup triple, was the Imperial Star artichokes. Put out 12 plants, two gave up the ghost early on, two more were spider mite bait, so 8 productive ones. I have picked buckets of artichokes. One plant is flowering now, but I have no idea, artichoke-wise, if the seeds, if I get any, are going to be valid. Pretty blue, though.

Some local folks have told me I can save the plants until next year - dig 'em up, pot them, and keep them in a cool, dark place. I may give it a try, but they all have enough aphids and spider mites to make me wonder.

Go Cubs.

Home run is the paste tomatoes, I have been freezing cookie sheets of them to paste later. Probably not as many as I could have, but we had salsa and a few other goodies from them as well.
Triple, Craigslist. I had a gentleman give me 80, yes 80 strawberry runners that I potted up so they can get really good roots before they go out. 20 are going to each of two friends, which still leaves me with 40, yeah.
Double, would have to be the peppers. Not as many as I like, but compared to previous years, awesome.
Single, corn. Much better than I expected considering the age of the seeds, and oh so yummy when fresh.
Strike outs, squash did not produce as much as I would have liked Brassicas did not produce anything, Cucs were buried under the tomatoes, oops.
Still waiting to harvest potaotes. Have my bushel baskets ready, just hoping to fill them.
Go Broncos (sorry I really don't watch baseball, unless it's the kids team).

Billie

Potatoes were my biggest miss! The Caribe potatoes harvested in July were just fine and are delicious - there's still a half box of them in the basement. Digging and replanting some of those same Caribe spuds worked not at all. Dad planted some organic spuds from the store about a week before my little "quick turn-around" on the Caribe. They produced lots of edible little potatoes. Must be "curing time" on the Caribe or somethin', shucks . . .

David, these 2 Asian melons (Honda & Sun Jewel) are listed as hybrids. I just tasted a mystery melon from my garden at lunchtime. The vine came from a hill labeled "Honey Girl."

At 1st, I thought these 3 small melons might be the seedless watermelons planted in the patch - they are that green! The plant didn't look like a watermelon so I must have been correct that all the seedless plants died in the Spring chill.

I left the melons on the deck for a couple days figuring they weren't quite ripe. They were nearly just as green inside as out and had not the slightest resemblance, fragrance, nor taste to any Honey Girl, watermelon, nor anything else I've ever experienced! I think the hybridizers let something get past them.

Heaven knows what this green melon vine is related to. I suspect that the intended male parent was left out of the equation. The 3 fruits may be appreciated by the chickens.

d'S'

digit - "I think the hybridizers let something get past them". boy do I hear that. I had a few of those "mystery plants" this year. When I planted my tomatoes, I had something that resembled a pepper pop up. It never got past the 6 leaf stage, died early July. Then I have a vine that was in the national pickling cuc seeds. It does not look like any cuc I ever saw. The vine looks more like a watermelon and the fruit is dark green like a watermelon rind, but the fruit is flat on the blossom end and the blossoms are squash blossoms, the size my pumpkin blossoms were, real strange. I also wound up with white, striped, normal and green splochy acorn squash on one? plant? That is just the type of year I am having. I am confused.

Billie

DW just loved, loved, loved the Sweet Banana peppers we bought one year, so we saved the seed. I couldn't believe it but we got 3 different peppers out of those seeds. We were afraid to replant the seed from any of them.

Life is fairly simple with open-pollinated seed - there will be some diversity, expect it. I really like to have a complete idea of what I'm going to get. You know, "seed catalog perfect." With F1 hybrids, the plants are often as similar as peas in a pod - not always, just often.

There's a strawberry roan mare and a roan mule we drive by a couple times a week. It seems likely that this beautiful mare is the dam and that homely mule is the foal. He's a big guy, full-grown, with his mother's lovely coat but . . .

(Sound like I could be of 2 minds about hybrids & OP? ;o)

Still, I appreciate those workers out there with their paintbrushes dabbed in pollen. Now if I could just capture those qualities of equine color by dabbing a brush in paint - wouldn't that be fine?

Steve's digits

Neither here nor there, but almost all of the commercial raising of hybrid seed plants is now done in China.

That includes Sun Gold tomatoes.

David, it has become so with nearly everything. If the knowledge & technology can be exported to a cheaper workforce - it happens and likely will continue happening until all workers everywhere are at the same level (bottom). I cannot see anything disrupting this trend except high transportation costs and that should result in a world-wide depression where we all end up at that same level, sooner.

I have done just a little researching in the poultry field. This meat we purchase in the supermarkets is absolutely astounding in its genetic background as well as its production. Truly, this is "industry" and not "husbandry" now. I don't really want to be a part of the machinery but, I guess I am part of it as a purchaser of modern seed and everything else within the market. Gag!

Perhaps, I'll keep my paintbrush dry and my hoe sharp. I've got to save some of this Legend tomato seed before I lose track of the fruit. Jack Frost can no longer be counted on to stay at bay.

S'

Digit,

Since you seem to have some melon success, would you like to try these:

http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/product.asp?pf%5Fid=19078&dept%5Fid=3&mscssid=F9BP31LX53949LA240FXX83A3DLB5U25

I planted, and there were several fruits that started, but I was obviously doing something wrong as they yellowed when very small and dropped off the vine. We harvested one, very large melon last week. It was pretty nice. It was ripe - but the green specs never turned orange as described in the link.

If you'd like these I'll send you what I have left. I have a feeling you could make a home run out of these.

Alice

ps. in case the link doesn't work, they're Crane or Eel River melons from Nichols Nursery.

I can remember the Eel River but melons weren't involved - maybe melon heads.

I went to high school not far from the Eel and made a return visit during my early 20's. Took a swim in the Eel after having quite a few too many beers.

I remember thinking at the time - this has got to be one of the dumbest things you've ever done . . . survived to remember thinking that.

Oooo, that's an interesting looking melon.

d'S'

The end is here.

They've called a frost advisory for tonight in the city. I gathered almost all of my tomato containers onto the back porch. I hope that will protect them from any frost. The couple of tomatoes that had begun to blush I picked for them to finish ripening indoors.

The potatoes are hale and healthy, but I expect any frost will be the beginning of the end for them. They've been in the ground for almost five months. I'm hoping for some gumongus tubers out of them. The broccoli and Brussels sprouts are so aphid ridden that I've pretty much given up on them. The plants will live through a frost just fine. Hopefully the bugs won't.

I never did get any Brussels sprouts. As of today, all that's visible are some pinhead size sprouts. They had 150 days in the ground. Don't know why they never developed.

I harvested my first and only Ronde de Nice from my zucchini plants. There are a couple more Black Eel zukes developing and a lot of female buds, but I don't know if I'll actually get any more zucchinis out of them.

I'm thinking of taking at least a couple tomato plants inside and putting them in my plant room. They have so many green tomatoes forming I'd hate to give up on them.