Holy Mother of God it is an actual MELON!! And it has grown into the chain link! I spied this fella while watering the garden this afternoon, squinting into the sun light thinking I must be having a garden hallucination. But no! There really was a big green ball where a melon should be, so I dropped the hose and scurried over to inspect a little more closely- and to my surprise I found more! So the outrageously good news is that I have melons, the bad news is my vines are a diseased mess and have been totally neglected. Sigh.
I immediately went inside to mix up a fish fertilizer cocktail for the fruiting vines, followed but the removal of the worst leaves, followed by a spraying of Bonide (neem), and here is the really bad part- an innocent bumble bee flew into the path of my poison. In all my haste I forgot not to spray the chemicals while the bees are active. *@#&! I feel horrible. I sprayed my winter squash too (first), not thinking the pollinators will will stopping by all afternoon to do their business. Bee killer, that is me.
Guess I shouldn't have stopped watering those dang vines a couple of weeks ago. Or stopped caring that they were going down hill fast for that matter. I had given up any hope of melons this year after my prized baby stopped growing and withered. Boy was I wrong, lets just keep our fingers crossed these beauties ripen before the vines succumb to the dreaded powdery mildew and other such diseases.
6 comments:
Too funny! My friend's watermelon grew on the other side of her chain link fence and knocked her neighbor's wooden fence down this year, lol! She went next door and was mortified to see that not only that was there, but hundreds of beans and peas too! She tried to apologize but they laughed and said they hoped she didn't mind they had been eating it all!
Oh that is too funny! Mine will need to be carved out just before eating.
I had a pumpkin grow into my fence. It's a sorry looking specimen! My pumpkins and cucumbers were solid mildew, but they just kept on pumping out the crops, so there is a good chance your melons will do the same.
Phew! Thanks A.G., that makes me feel better.
Congratulations! How exciting! So you're just gonna let that one grow into the fence??? That should be an interesting sight!
I've bought some fish emulsion a couple of weeks ago but have yet to feed my veggies (Bad gardener!) I'm sure now is the critical time too.
Thomas, I don't think there is much else to do. It's in there now, I missed my window to yank it.
Your garden will probably appreciate the feeding when ever you have a chance to give it. 'Late' should be ok since you are trying to stimulate new growth, right?
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