Torpeda and Ananas d'Amerique A Chair Verte melons, 2018

This year, we grew our muskmelons (with the exception of the Armenian cucumbers) with black plastic. This proved to be an early season benefit, raised soil temperature, and reduced watering needs, but when it warmed up, the soil seemed to be too warm for them. I could probably count the number of times I watered them, this year, on two hands (notwithstanding it didn't rain at all for most of the growing season). I gave all the muskmelons basalt rockdust, potassium sulfate, and monoammonium phosphate at planting time, and later Epsom salt. I gave some of them a powdered fish amendment (Torpeda, and I think one or two others). I think I gave them ammonium sulfate and maybe also urea one time, too, since they seemed to need nitrogen.

I gave them Epsom salt to help improve their heat-tolerance, since it seemed to work with the strawberries. It worked here, too.

Torpeda seemed to handle the soil heat, and the drought, the best out of all the muskmelons. It has really cool-looking fruits. Mine were netted (after a while—they were smooth for a good long while) and striped. They were large, but not the size they are advertised as being able to achieve. I had one plant, and it set a good number of fruits, especially considering their size.

The fruits have split when ripe, so far—although they seem to ripen maybe a couple days before they split (so if you pick them in time, you may not have to worry). They're probably much less prone to splitting in my area if you don't use black plastic. That seems to encourage splitting for melons (including watermelons, too) here.

Torpeda fruits have very (IMO) white flesh. They look kind of like coconut when cracked open. It has a texture similar to watermelon, but firmer. The taste is gentle, but very sweet, and to me it has a vanilla kind of taste and aroma in my mouth. One fruit tasted kind of like a honeydew, in some regards. It's really a unique melon, though. Don't grow it thinking it'll be just like a honeydew. It's probably not like anything you've eaten before. The fruits didn't have much aroma at all before eating, however.

My tasters all seem to like Torpeda a lot, so far, as far as they've reported to me. I like it a lot. I plan to grow it again next year, both from saved seeds and from a new packet I have.

There's a lot of gel around the seeds. It seemed like it might take a while to remove it; so, I thought I'd eat it and spit the seeds out. This proved to be effective until I found that something in it was quickly eating away the skin of the roof of my mouth at the back (it stung like raw pineapple does when you eat a lot of it). So, I'm guessing it probably has some cool digestive enzyme, like bromelain in it, which will one day be discovered and valued. Someone should do a ham with it (like pineappled ham), or some marinade.

Because it was netted I'm not sure if my plant was true to type. It may have been part something else, but I'd imagine it would be a different color than white, if so.

I really like how big and attractive the plant was. It's really awesome. I like it's heat-tolerance, and how it's a big melon that produced a decent number of fruits.

I harvested one fruit several days ago, another on Monday. They each tasted unique (they came from the same plant, though), but they looked the same, and were both exceptional. They both had the same texture.

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Anyway, Ananas d'Amerique A Chair Verte was bigger this year. I could have been imagining this, but I thought it looked like it had orangish flesh, in the middle, this year. Maybe it was a cross—but I don't know. It wasn't as fragrant, and the taste wasn't the same as last year, but it tasted like an excellent cantaloupe.

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Here's the first Torpeda melon that I harvested (the split was pretty big):