With Larry Cooper

Jason Garcia

A few weeks ago in this space I wrote about vegetable growing with Huma Gro^®. Today I’m writing about melons—which are a whole different proposition. In my part of Florida, growers frequently follow their strawberry crop with melons (typically watermelons or cantaloupes), seed-planted right into the strawberry beds while the strawberries are still producing their final fruits of the season. The plastic mulch and drip tape are still in place, but the fertilizer applications have wound down so as not to soften the berries and invite disease.

Bed Preparation

When the melon seeds are planted, we hope that it is into strawberry beds that have been using our Promax^®/Zap^® fumigation-replacement program. If so, then that program can continue through the drip irrigation right through seed planting and all the subsequent melon growth stages till harvest without interruption. If the beds weren’t on a Promax^®/Zap^® program for the strawberries, we recommend that you implement it for your melons; fumigation isn’t an option for the way this second crop is grown, but nematodes and soil-borne diseases can still severely damage your crop if they are allowed to take hold. Here’s a quick reminder of our Promax^®/Zap^® program that is much safer than fumigation, has no restrictions, and can be less than half the cost. [Read more…]