Ideal soil for watermelon

Watermelon is a productive garden crop. Aside from being a table fruit, young watermelons can be cooked in the same manner gourds are cooked.

Watermelon is a warm-season, frost-sensitive crop that requires a relatively long growing season from 75 to 120 days depending on the cultivar and environment. The plant is best grown in the month of October to January; however, in the upland and on hillsides, watermelon can be grown during the rainy months.

Watermelon can be grown on a variety of soil types. Ideal soil for watermelon is well-drained, fertile, light soil, which is enriched with manure or compost with pH range from 6.0 to 7.0.

Soil compaction restricts root growth, so friable, deep and well drained sandy loams are preferred for watermelon production.

In the lowland, sandy-loam and silly-loam are ideal soils for watermelon. In the hillsides and upland, sandy and stony soils will produce quality harvest of watermelon when these are enriched with organic matter.

Watermelons can be grown without irrigation or mulch but this is not recommended for commercial production because most areas experience water deficits sometime during the growing season that lower yields and reduce fruit quality.

Continuous cropping of the same land should be avoided. Rotation once every 4-6 years is desirable and once every 10 or more years of Fusarium and nematodes are a problem.
Ideal soil for watermelon

Planting of blackberry plant

In general, the best time for establishing a blackberry plantation is in the spring, and as growth normally starts early, the work of planting should be done as early as soil conditions will permit.

Availability of soil moisture is the most importance factor to consider in choosing a planting site for blackberry.

Almost any soil type, except very sandy soils, is suitable for blackberries as long as the drainage is good.

Blackberries are for the most part rank-growing pants and require liberal distances in and between the rows.

A common planting, plant erect varieties of blackberries five feet apart in the row, and eight to ten feet between the rows.  Space vigorous varieties of trailing or semi-trailing blackberries such as Thornless Evergreen, eight to 12 feet apart in rows, that are 10 feet apart.

The tillage of the blackberry plantation should be such as to hold weeds and suckers in check and maintain maximum moisture and growth conditions, but cultivation should cease early enough to induce the plants to ripen their wood thorough before winter.
Planting of blackberry plant

Mandarin Orange (Citrus reticulate)

Fresh mandarin types of oranges are thin-skinned and are usually oblate or decidedly flattened at the ends. These oranges are a variety of orange that has a loose peel, popularly referred to as ‘loose jacket’ to distinguish it from the ‘light jacket’ of a normal orange, which has a peel that tightly adheres to the flesh.

Mandarin organs trees are more cold resistant and heat resistant than the other citrus species.  The trees on mandarin orange rootstock were approximately the same size as those on sweet orange.

mandarin orange

The mandarin orange tree is generally smaller than that of sweet orange. With age it may reach a height of 7-8 m, with a wide spread of branches and leaves. The tree usually has thorns, but its twigs are slender.

The trees yielded annually 350 dozen each tree and the more common varieties have produced 180 dozen.

The sandy soils in the high rainfall areas are suitable for growing mandarin orange.

Mandarin oranges thrive well on soil which have a natural sub-soil drainage system as water-logging around the roots of the plant during heavy roans in the monsoon is harmful to the plant life.

China is one the native homes of the mandarin oranges and has a cultivation history of about 4000 years.
Mandarin Orange (Citrus reticulate)

Definition of Fruit Crop

Definition of Fruit Crop
One would think that the term fruit crop would be clearly defined – not so. In fact, one of the most frequently asked questions from web site, “Is the tomato is a fruit or vegetable?” The usual reply is “both” as it is already a fruit in the botanical sense, but a vegetable from a culinary perspective.

There are also legal definitions on the books, since in some instances vegetables are taxed and fruits are not (or vice versa).

The definition of fruit crops as “a perennial, edible crop where the economic product is the true botanical fruit or is derived therefrom.”

The word perennial eliminates crops grown as annuals such as tomato, pepper, melons, and corn , even though the harvested product is the true botanical fruit.

Annual cultivation practices differ markedly from those of perennial crops, and to call these fruit crops would only increase the existing confusion.

Note that strawberry an herbaceous perennial, is included in the text even though, in recent decades, much of the acreage is replanted annually.

The world edible eliminates perennial crops whose fruits are used for fiber such as kapok, or strictly industrial oils such as tung nuts. The true botanical fruit includes the ripened ovary, plus any associated parts and contains the seeds of the plants.

While most would not considered coffee and cacao fruit crops, they fit the definition because they are perennials and coffee and cocoa are just roasted, ground up seeds of the fruit.

Africa oil palm, coconut and olive and palm oils are edible are derived from a true botanical fruit. A nut is a dry, indehiscent fruit with a hard shell.
Definition of Fruit Crop