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- From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
- To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??
- Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:48:45 -0600
Naomi,
I tried growing winter melon in
2005 in a drought. I wasted a lot of precious water keeping the vines
alive, only to find that they would drop their blooms when drought
stressed. Never had a single fruit set. Glenn Drowns comments in his
catalog that he thought they grew really slowly till he realised that they
required HOT weather to grow well. If you can provide both very hot
weather AND plenty of water, they will probably produce for you. However,
I suspect they don't have much taste or nutritional value, and you'd do far
better to grow something like butternut or a maxima squash that
offers both, plus is proven to grow well in the northern states. They sell
winter melons in the oriental groceries, I have never been much tempted to
try them because they are white and watery looking.
OOPS, do you mean Wax melon, as
grown in Asia? Or what we think of as watermelon, only for winter
storage? The trouble with that sort of thing is that we THINK in the hot
summer that melon in the winter would be nice, but in actually it's not all that
refreshing when you are already cool and wet in the winter. I've
stored tomatoes and grown the long keepers. They are pretty neat, orange on the outside, red on the
inside. They were once called "Garden Peach" because they really do look
like a peach, with a weird reddish glow from inside.
Unfortunately there is a bogus one being sold by the same name that is small and
yellow and not intended for storage.
If you want to try something
different, bitter melon grows very well here in Tennessee, and tastes quite nice
in curries. I've grown gherkins and tromboncini, both worth growing, and
have met someone who grows Mexican sour gherkins. Oh, and there's Apios
americana. Grows in every state in the east, from Z3 to Z9. I note
Diane recommends an Australian squash. I have bought Jarrahdale grown
locally and they are terrific. Sweetmeat should grow for you too.
I'm tempted annually by the descriptions, but the borers are so bad here, they
always get the maximas. Maybe in a couple of years when this drought is
over I'll try them. Right now I'm planning to try to get everything going
really early, and only very sure bets. We're not getting the rain we need
to replenish the soil deficit from the last 3 growing seasons, much less the
groundwater supplies.
Have you seen the book WILD
FERMENTATION, written by a fellow named Katz? I think Fedco is
offering it this year. There is good info on preserving the stuff that we
already grow. Between that book and a woman I met I finally got the nerve
to try lactic acid fermentation, and to keep trying till I got it to work.
I have Bill Mollison's FERMENT AND HUMAN NUTRITION, which is very informative
and often useful. ( I learned from it that fermented foods from Thailand
are safe to keep here without refrigeration because they are 20% salt by weight,
the only way to safely keep food in a place that runs 100 degrees most of the
year.) I have the European book KEEPING FOOD FRESH, which is very nice but
the line for botulism is somewhere around 65 F, which is way below the ambient
temp in TN in the summer. I was thus thrilled when Katz showed up where I
worked asking to put up a flyer for a talk he was giving about his newly
published book. He was exactly what I was looking for: Someone who'd
been fermenting food in Tenn for 10 years and wasn't dead yet. I bought a
copy on the spot!
Donna
|
-
[NAFEX] Winter melons??,
Naomi, 01/15/2008
- Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??, Diane Whitehead, 01/15/2008
- Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??, Stephen Sadler, 01/15/2008
- Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??, loneroc, 01/16/2008
-
Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??,
Donna &/or Kieran, 01/16/2008
- Re: [NAFEX] Winter melons??, Karen Tillou, 01/17/2008
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