The Bitter Truth about Asian Pickling Melons

Occasionally I do variety trials. One of the variety trials I decided to conduct was a pickling melon variety trial. For this one, I grew out all of the pickling melons that I could find and grew them out to their first true set of leaves. Then I tasted the leaves for bitterness. All but two of the pickling C. melo varieties that I grew had very bitter leaves (a clear indication that bitter fruit would follow). So I only grew those varieties out for a short while.

  

 

The least bitter pickling melons were spared and grown until they were much larger. At this point, I tasted the leaves and stems and found them to be bitter, so I pulled them too. 

I am sure that there are some types of pickling melon that are not bitter, but I have yet to find them – yet.

Sweet Potatoes in the Garden

Each year I save the very best sweet potatoes to plant for the following season for growing out sweet potato slips. I have found that by utilizing my clay ollas using my EasiOyYa setup (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/easioyya#/comments), I am able to provide a steady source of moisture for my sweet potatoes.

 

All I do is set the sweet potatoes in the ground lengthwise near each olla, then I water them once by hand. Then I wait. As the sweet potato slips pop out of the ground, I make sure to select slips that have strong healthy growth. Slips consist of both the top growth (the stem and leaves) as well as the roots that begin growing below ground from the stem. For the most part, once the sweet potato is harvested, no roots or further growth occurs from the original mother sweet potato unless the new slips provide energy to them. When I lived in Tucson and had warmer soil temperatures, I found it easiest to grow sweet potatoes by starting the tuber in the ground and removing the potato once the slips have grown large enough. However, now that I live in an area with cooler soil temperatures, I find it advantageous to start my slips where I know that the soil temperature remains consistently warm.

 

Starting slips can be relatively easy. In very hot climates, you can shade the transplants for a day or two to allow them to get established. Because the leaves do not transpire as much as many other vegetable varieties, most transplants should be successful. Even a relatively small end of stem can be successfully transplanted into the ground to make a completely new plant.

 

While I generally start my transplants around June 1st (something I have been doing since living in Tucson), you may need to start your transplants a little later if you live in a much cooler climate. Short-season productive varieties may do better in climates with a short season. For nearly a decade, I have been utilizing Dingess Purple. I settled on this variety after a trail with half a dozen purple sweet potato varieties. It had the best flavor and texture of any of the sweet potatoes I grew and it makes a fabulous purple sweet potato pie.

Bananas from the Greenhouse to the Backyard

In the early days of 2020, for some reason I felt a strong desire to grow bananas. While I had known that it is possible to grow some types of bananas in my climate, I had not been focusing deeply on growing bananas for any period of time. It was just something that felt right at the time, so I found some bananas online and purchased them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While there are many different kinds of banana trees that I could grow, and there are many different kinds of bananas in the world today, I settled on trying out the regular Chiquita-style banana, the Great Nain. I knew that this particular variety exhibited less cold tolerance than some others, but I felt it was worth it to give it a try.

 

The banana trees I received were clones that were shipped from Florida. They did alright in the greenhouse for a while. However, after a period of time, they did require planting out. I planted them out once at a time until I planted the last one out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At first I saw the little plants I set out suffer each time I set it out. One and then the next died. Finally there were only two plants left. One of those began to rot from the inside. I felt nauseous as I contemplated wasting so much time on keeping them alive and then having it end this way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, I had also felt that I should try a new kind of biological fungicide called “Serenade”. I sprayed it on both of the plants and poured some of the diluted mixture on the center of the decaying plant. Within a week, the nearly dead plant began growing out a new middle stalk. Within several weeks that plant produced a couple pups.

 

While I am definitely no expert on the best techniques and strategies to growing bananas in a 9b climate in the Bay Area, I did know that compost helps. I made sure to add as much healthy compost as I could and the tree responded with plenty of growth. In addition to compost, the plants responded well to a combination of regular watering coupled other amendment – especially nitrogen fertilizer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the end of the season, the cold weather became difficult for the trees. The types of fungus and bacteria that are so prevalent in the winter took hold and reduced some of the strength of the older growth on the tree. The only way I was able to stave it off was by utilizing a spray containing Bacillus subtilis strain QST 713. While I would have preferred using clear plastic to protect the plants, during occasional cold spells I encircled the plants with a camping tarp.