I have gotten seeds over the years and keep them going. Pretty happy with a lot of them but watermelon. Can y'all recommend a good old fashioned, sweet, oblong watermelon variety. The ones we had as youngins are 1000x better then the ones today, especially store bought!

…. Pm Wolfdog

Charleston Gray!!

Charlston Grey is my favorite. For an early icebox type, Blacktail Mountain is my go-to. Forget sugarbaby it is a vine looking for a place to die, and if it hangs around long enough to grow a melon, it'll be tastless.

Another really sweet and somewhat early is Ali Baba. Looks like a half scale Charlestown Grey, not as consistent in size, shape, or production though.

I planted 6 rows of heirloom sweet corn in a pivot of GMO triple stack a few years ago in grain corn field. I forgot to tell my son about it and he sprayed it with a full load of roundup and other herbicide. It didn’t phase it and it grew like a weed. Non GMO my butt. I don’t know how a guy knows who to trust. Pretty discouraging.

https://www.rareseeds.com/watermelo...lXZ8YwbrYvF6TFX_pA8_gm6U3v0wHOrqjZrbpDKM

we really like these and love this company.

interesting

That is the thing. I used to have a great source that I trusted but she passed and they didn't keep it going. I'm not really sure how we can tell what's what anymore but I know I need a better melon lol.

Corn is extremely difficult to keep pure as being wind pollinated it needs at least a mile seperation from any other that is tasseling at the same time.

Well, I know. And I'd tell ya.... if you weren't ignoring me lol

from the description of the seeds I linked.

This melon has a green rind and succulent red flesh that is of excellent flavor and sweetness. It is a beautiful melon and a favorite on our farm, easy to grow and producing fruit up to 20 lbs. One of the most fascinating seed discoveries in modern history! In the early 1920s, Art Combe, a Southwestern plant expert and amateur prospector, found a small woven pot filled with bright red watermelon seeds in an abandoned sandstone cave in Arizona’s Mogollon Rim. The red seeds are believed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old! Art planted the seeds and just a few germinated. The fruit was small and crooknecked, unlike any other watermelon he had ever seen before, but the flavor was incredible! Art grew this ancient Native American watermelon for several decades, selecting the largest and most round specimens. The result of decades of selecting is a superb extra large watermelon with bright red extra sweet flesh. (Some fruit may still have necks.) Art used a dry farming technique that allowed him to grow extra sweet watermelons with almost no irrigation in the searing hot desert; these watermelons are extremely heat and drought tolerant!

Full Sun
Sprouts in 5-10 Days
Ideal Temperature: 70-95 Degrees F
Seed Depth: 1/2-1 inch
Plant Spacing: 3'
Frost Hardy: No
Citrullus lanatus

I've read that description as well but it doesn’t hold up as watermelon is native to africa and didn't get here until after Columbus. So posibly hundreds of years old but not thousands.

So far I'm gonna give Charleston Grey a go. Wish I knew what the old man grew back in the day. It was oblong, so heavy it took 3 men and a boy to carry, and were super sweet and not grainy.

That heavy sounds like Carolina Cross. It's a giant melon, oblong and striped like the old Rattlesnake melon. Rattlesnake can get pretty big and has good flavor. Several variation selections made off Rattlesnake over the years. Garrisonian, Kleckley's Sweet, Klondike Blue Ribbon all go back to Rattlesnake.

Another good sweet melon to try, one of the last open polinated bred before the F1 hybrids and triploid seedless took over is Crimson Sweet. I've always thought that one had great flavor.

If size is what you're after try Congo, oblong dark green with striping white seeded, or Black Diamond aka Florida Giant aka Cannonball, round dark dark green almost black. Both can hit the 50lb range.

Trapper Les may be able to help you some. That dude has mad gardening skills.

https://www.sandhillpreservation.com/


They gots really interesting seeds.

Halberts Honey
It's an old variety it's oblong very good tasting dark green, I've grown them in the past, they grow big, real big , I really like them a lot but there to big for me,

Congo!