Watermelon Grownout 2019

[ac21686]

oldman, I've grown quite a few of the watermelons on your list and I'm in Zone 6A, maybe 20-25 minutes from 5B. One that I think you should consider is Diana. It is a yellow rind/red flesh like Golden Midget, but in my experience, much sweeter. Fedco measured both and Diana had a 10.3 brix vs GM's 7.4. The Wash. St. evaluation had the same results (mine was a shade over 10 as well). Here are my thoughts on some of the others:

Black Tail Mountain -- consistently my earliest. Brix consistently mid-8s for me. I do not grow it for the small stand we have in the summer at our garden center anymore because it's VERY seedy in my experience. Pretty good, otherwise.

Ali Baba -- I couldn't pick this correctly, I'm guessing. Baker Creek swears by it, but I never had a good one.

Crimson Sweet -- Classic watermelon, can't really go wrong with it.

Cream of Sasketchewan -- Early. Decent taste.

A few others I thought of that worked well for me: Gold Flower, Jade Star (~10 or so days later than Blacktail Mountain, but better tasting IMO), Sorbet Swirl (sweetest I've grown), and Hime Kansen.

Some of the others are 95-100 -- perhaps even longer -- day watermelons (Moon and Stars, Carolina Cross) for me and they've never worked out that well. Hopefully you fare better!