Trial begins on whether melon crop can be advanced for earlier harvest

Yesterday I transplanted melon starts that I began in Oasis cubes.

The transplantation to Dutch buckets took its toll on watermelon seedling especially. I think the problem was that I did not wet the perlite before I transplanted them and it dehydrated the seedlings.

The mixture in the Dutch bucket is about 20% coconut coir an 80% percent perlite. My hope is to advance a melon harvest by about 2 months so that I can have melons ready by May instead of July.

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Oasis Cubes better than seed starting mix

In my comparison of using a seed starting mix and Oasis cubes for germinating seeds, I have found that the Oasis cubes far outperform the seed starting mix. Not only is damping off not an issue with the cubes, but there has been a greater success of germinating pepper and tomato seeds with the cubes. It remains to be seen if the advantage of the cubes continues on to transplantation. It may turn out that the cubes simply do not measure up to a root ball of seed starting mix when it comes to putting them out either in the garden or into hydroponic media.

Effective control of crickets

After losing successful starter seedlings to crickets, I have had to undertake a total cricket eradication program in the greenhouse. This included removing all dead leaves and debris from the floor, getting rid of clutter an extra buckets and other items that were not in use, and spraying the greenhouse floor, wall and doorway with an organic pesticide. Essentria IC3 is an organic pesticide with plant oils as its active ingredients. Although I was skeptical that the product would work as I needed it to, it turns out that after two applications I have almost totally eliminated all crickets that were already in the greenhouse and ones that migrated into it after application. I still must follow up with a light spraying daily in order to control the crickets that have entered each night through crevices and cracks between bricks in the floor of the greenhouse. But I have lost no more seedlings since I have using the product..

More hydroponic melons started

Bato buckets of melon starts. Today, I sowed Israeli melons in 10 more Bato buckets. Unlike my previous starts in Oasis cubes, I directly sowed the seed into the medium in the buckets. The medium is composed of about half and half perlite and coconut coir. I've placed the buckets in the greenhouse to keep them warm, as nights are still chilly in the 50s. In the greenhouse, lows stay in the upper 60s, so the melons should germinate faster. If the starts are successful, then I should harvest melons from these buckets about two weeks earlier than melons sown directly in the field at the first of April. As for the melons started in February, they're growing slowly after having dehydrated. I was unaware of how dry perlite can be, and when I transplanted the seedlings into the perlite, I did not water the buckets thoroughly enough. They are recovering, but I think I've lost some of their potential advantage. Melons started in early February in Oasis cubes, transpl

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