New World Datsuns...

I cut open a second Watermelon and it was picked slightly sooner than the one before, the first one had areas in the rind that were turning brown while this one did not, the first one near the brown spots in the rind it did not taste right/as good, this one it tastes the same throughout, but around the seeds in both there was air while Watermelons at the store the seeds are in fresh red material, but it tastes fine, not sure I can eat this many Watermelons to get them picked in time(when they should have been picked).

They are bigger than the personal Watermelons at the store, I suppose I can eat half a one a day, I always lose weight when I eat Watermelons, here it is picked with my slippers to give the photo context.



And here it is cut open.



I forgot to take photos of the Watermelon plants I planted last in my front yard where a Blueberry plant died, I planted them because it would have been a waste to throw them away, they actually caught up with the Watermelon plants in the garden, I will try to remember to take a photo of them, they totally grew over the sidewalk leading to the front door and there are 3 huge Watermelons of two different varieties.

I also thatched the front yard, I spread out grass seed and raked it into the dirt in bare areas 2 days ago, I do not see any new grass yet, I need to be more patient I guess, I am keeping the dirt moist(watering it at least 3 times a day for 5 to 10 minutes), I just want to see some kind of result.

That's awesome! I think this is the first year I've planted any melons and the plants are doing great but no produce yet. My okra is starting to shoot pods though. I suspect your soil is a lot more nutrient rich than mine.

I have not done anything with the soil until this year, I believe for the most part where I planted the Watermelon seeds has been where I have normally planted 4 Tomato plants, there have been a lot of uneaten tomatoes(especially cherry type) that get rototilled into the dirt every year, I had already planted the Watermelon seeds before removing the contaminated strawberry plants, them areas got 3 yards of Compost rototilled in, I need to finish the compost thing in late fall after everything dies like the cucumber, tomato, corn, and lettuce, I will likely bring on two or 3 more yards of Compost and rototill it all in all the areas that did not get it this Spring.

I also got more pavers today, so I will continue to put them in the path leading to my Southern sky observing spot, it is a lot nicer since improving that path, and having pavers makes it even nicer.

I added another row of them landcaping wall cement blocks, I need 5 more to finish that.

That Watermelon I mentioned picking that I thought it might have been picked too late, well it was picked at just the right time, none of the flesh of the Watermelon had over ripened, but it was small, I ate it all at one time, I still have 4 huge watermelons to pick that are likely ready, it will take more than a couple weeks to eat/get to all them.

I have stalled on picking more Watermelons, when I look at the bottom where the field spot is it is not dark yellow yet on any of them, they are the color of that first one I picked that had not even turned slightly red yet.

3 of the Watermelons I am talking about are resting on my cement sidewalk leading to my front door, they barely have a field spot at all and them plants were planted later than the ones in the backyard garden, they have a very small almost white spot, yet one is larger than any Watermelon I have picked to date, it is huge but the type that people would normally call it a personal Watermelon, that type ripens earlier, I am afraid to pick it and have it not be ripe like I did that first one I picked.

Sorry, I have gotten lazy on the photos thing, I will take a photo of a few things before I change or pick anything, this is the best Watermelon year I have ever had.

I am also working on a new base for the 16" to see if I can make it lighter/cleaner, but the existing base works so well I do not even want to use the 20" dob anymore, this thing works so well it is like the high end telescopes(expensive), but it has the high end side bearings I bought from Teeter Telescopes(they quit making telescopes) and that was why they had the extra set of side bearings to sell, the main reason I am making a new base is because I am going to make a base, mirror cell frame, and mirror cell out of aluminum, but I do not weld aluminum, so I want to copy the best version I can make out of steel, well the first version has way too many small pieces and welding needed done, this new version will have less than half the welds, cutting, setup, and welding is a $100.00 an hour, my plan is to figure out which version to have made, cut all the pieces so everything is ready to set it up on the table and weld, I will also send the complete steel version I want copied with all the parts so all they need to do is copy what they have there in front of them, mistakes are likely not to be made if what I want in aluminum is right in front of them made out of steel.

Here are some photos of the large Watermelon in the front yard with my foot on the photo to give some context.





Here are the Watermelon plants in the front yard that have grown over the front side walk that leads to the front door, I did not expect anything from these Watermelon starts as they were planted later, but even these did better than any other Water melon plants I have planted before., it must have been the conditions this year.



This is the new mount I am working on, things have not went as planned as I was hoping, plans change because of issues on things I did not think of or things did not work as planned, my goal was to make it simpler so there would be less welding on the Aluminum version, it is not simpler.







Here is where I planted grass seed, it has finally sprouted, now I wait to see how evenly it turns out.

The Watermelon I picked was fine, it was not as dark red as I had hoped, but the flesh around the seeds had started to make a pocket around the seed, the Watermelons at the store are usually picked sooner I think and do not have that pocket, but they are a slightly darker red(slightly), maybe it has something to do with being on the cement walkway to my front door.

Maybe a difference between ripening on the vine vs. picked green and ripening at the store.

DRIVEN wrote: ↑Wed Sep 06, 2023 5:07 pm Maybe a difference between ripening on the vine vs. picked green and ripening at the store.

I did not know that a Watermelon will ripen after picked, I do know that my search said once picked it should be stored at room temperature until cut open, then it needs to be refrigerated.

Well today I took all the starts I have been nurturing since cropping out the 18/20 plants for that second row, I made 3 more rows of Strawberries, there are 9 plants per row(shorter rows), I will get photos tomorrow, I am half way back to where I was before removing all the contaminated plants, I started with I think 18 plants, I now have slightly over 60 plants using just the starts from them 18 plants, and they should all bear some fruit next summer, I am still eating Strawberries(ever bearing type) to this day, I have only had maybe 20 strawberries to eat so far, but them 20 were way better than what I got from the contaminated plants.

It is kind of strange how they multiply, a plant will grow a shoot that starts another plant, when I put a container filled with dirt under where the shoot starts another plant, well another shoot will come out of that plant and make another plant 6 or more inches away from that plant, and they keep doing that after I plant them in their own row, it goes on and on, most my starts come from a certain type of plant, I have 4 or 5 different types, I do not have any Hood type Strawberries right now, I will buy enough for a row next late Winter/early spring 2024 and concentrate on only using starts from that type for new rows, I will also concentrate on the Quinault type, I got no starts from them plants(I have a couple) this summer so far.

That's a great result! When I was a kid we lived next to a school's agricultural plot. They had acres of strawberries. At the east end of the field were huge strawberries that we used to feed on with our friends. I remember the fruit being almost fist sized (mid to late '80s). Nothing has ever been able to compare to that. The stuff we see now in grocery stores is a joke.

DRIVEN wrote: ↑Sat Sep 16, 2023 4:24 pm That's a great result! When I was a kid we lived next to a school's agricultural plot. They had acres of strawberries. At the east end of the field were huge strawberries that we used to feed on with our friends. I remember the fruit being almost fist sized (mid to late '80s). Nothing has ever been able to compare to that. The stuff we see now in grocery stores is a joke.

I will not buy strawberries at the store unless they smell like Strawberries, when they do smell like Strawberries they are from a locally owned Strawberry farm, it has been a while since I seen locally grown Strawberries at Chucks, I myself go to the farms if I cannot grow enough myself, I likely bought somewhere around 10 pounds of blueberries this year, even at $4.00 a pound already picked, it beats the stores product in price and quality, there is nothing like blueberries almost the size of a nickel, and they taste great, I found buying 4lbs of blueberries is about the limit for me and I have to eat them fast before they start getting mushy, what I buy was picked that day or the day before, they start getting mushy on the bottom of the bag after 3 days from being smashed from the weight of the Strawberries above them.

I have been adding more cement pavers to my walkway leading to my southern observing spot thru my garden, I have almost ran out of blocks, I have six feet of path left and it will be done, but I need more pavers and I do not want to buy new, so I will have to wait until I find more used ones, it looks like more than 6 feet, but I measured it, optical allusion.



Here are the three new rows of Strawberries, 30 new plants from the starts from mostly that first row of 18 plants.

Looks good, the pathway and the strawberries.

Taterhead wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2023 8:05 am Looks good, the pathway and the strawberries.

Thanks, I need to find more of the same style pavers as I think it would look goofy to use a different type the last 6 feet, although I do have other types, I did use 2 different types, some are smooth with the edges angled for going around curves, I just place them opposite of each other so they form a straight line across, the others are square/slightly rectangular(7" X 10"??, they are all dirty so they blend, what I have for extras are 2" X 8" X 16", they are totally different in size and color, they would look goofy in my mind, I suppose I could cut them into 8" X 8", but that is a lot of work and blades that cut cement are expensive.

I thought I could get enough Strawberry starts from them first 18 Strawberry plants to double what I had, I never dreamed I could get 65 plants total and I still have more starts that need to root, but I have never tried to start(plant) new starts in the winter, normally I just keep them in the small pots that other plants have come in and let them root over the winter and I plant them in early spring, but doing that way only has a 50 percent success rate, half die over a cold winter.

Keep in mind that normally I just use the starts I have between the rows as they send out shoots everywhere, but I had to remove all the contaminated plants and am mostly getting all my starts from the first 18 plants as I know they are not contaminated, I have pulled out several very small strawberry starts/plants that were from more than likely contaminated seed starts/berries that rotted from not being eaten, I need to keep any volunteer Strawberry seed plants/starts from growing, the nursery told me I had to even remove the roots of contaminated plants, I pull any strawberry plant starts that did not come from something I planted myself.

I brought home 2 more cord of seasoned firewood over the last couple days, they were basically 7'/8' long logs that were loaded onto my truck with an excavator, I had to cut some of the logs so they would fit in my flatbed(too long), anyway I believe I have enough wood to get thru this coming winter now, it cost $80.00 a load.

The second load had much larger logs but it was easier to deal with, 4 were around a foot round, I was able to slide them onto my cart and roll them to where I was going to cut them into 16" lengths, the other 3 logs were a lot larger, what I did was take the side board off and roll the first log off the side and roll it onto a 2 X 6 board, then I cut it into rounds, then I rolled the other logs onto what I had cut into rounds and I cut them into rounds and then rolled them into the wood shed, this worked way better than the first load, I did not get any photos.

So what I am doing telescope wise is I am building a new steel base that will be copied in Aluminum, I made 2 of them but the second one was a failure, I went back to the first one which is a better copy of the first one that works soooo nice, but it is steel also and way more complicated than the second one, I need it to be simple o I can cut all the pieces ahead of time, then take it to a guy that welds aluminum and all he has to do is set it up on his flat welding table and weld it together, he get $100.00 an hour, so I want it simple yet welded together accurately while taking the minimum amount of time, if I just brought raw aluminum to him he would have to cut it all, do a lot of measuring and it likely would take 4 times the time, I will also take him what I made out of steel so he knows what it is supposed to look like.









I guess I did not take any photos of the third try, it was simpler but it made things more complicated and required more parts that would need welding, what I have decided to go with will require less welding and be simpler although I will waste more aluminum, basically I will have two 22" pieces of metal welded into position with the holes needed already drilled, then when I take it home I will cut 20.5" out of the middle and the two short pieces on each side left will be in line, the alternative is to have four 3/4" pieces welded into position and hope they are aligned right, too me it is too complicated done that way, I think it will be cheaper to waste metal although I will likely use it for something else at some point so the aluminum is not wasted, this would all be a lot easier if I could weld aluminum myself, but the gun needed costs a lot of money, a cheap one would be over $1500.00, I would likely want an expensive one(better quality).

Last night I checked 5 Watermelons to see if they were ripe, none had dark yellow field spots on the bottom where they rest on the ground, they were mostly off whitish, three were rotten inside, one was on the edge of being over ripe but I ate half of it, it did not really taste/smell good like a Watermelon, I thru the other half away, the last one was not ripe at all, it got tossed also, the rotten ones were kinda soft on the outside, that is why I picked the hard one that was not ripe.

I guess I am not good at figuring out what ones are ripe when they are ready to be picked, I am not that good at picking good ones at the store either.

Yesterday I started cutting aluminum stock to make an aluminum base and 2 different mirror cells, one mirror cell out of 1/8" wall 3/4" square stock, the other made out of 1/16" wall 3/4" square stock to see if it is strong enough, I hope that the guy can weld that thin of aluminum, a couple more days and I should be ready to take everything to him.

I have not been posting a lot lately, I ripped out the cucumber, tomato plants(6 plants), lettuce, and pea plants over the last few days, brought in 2 yards of Compost, spread it out and then rototilled it in, I even removed the observing pad in the western garden area closest to the house, I am thinking about getting rid of the grass between the garden and the patio and putting pavers in them areas(not everywhere) and just putting the telescope in whatever spot observing would be the best for that night, it depends on if I can find enough used pavers for cheap.

This was where the western observing pad was located, it only took up maybe 20 precent of that area.



I also added two more rows of Strawberries, I now have 7 rows like I did before I ripped all the contaminated plants out, I still have enough plants started to make 2 or 3 more rows but I think I have enough rows of strawberry plants now, I will give some plants away.







I took all the aluminum to the welder and am waiting for a phone call when it is done.

Looks great!

Indeed it does. I’d love to have a garden plot like that.