Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 8 JuneA melon on 11 June, five big kidney-shaped leaves held out flat on stout pale stalks and wider than they are long, unmarked and fresh yellow-green, the newest of them furred so the hairs stand proud along every margin in the hard fall-off of the flash.Week of 29 JuneA young trailing vine spread flat over black woven ground fabric, its rounded scalloped leaves pale green and browning at the edges, a white plant label pushed into the soil at its crown.Week of 29 JuneA trailing vine laid flat across black woven ground fabric, its rounded rain-beaded leaves spotted yellow, runners reaching out on every side from a low crown.Week of 6 JulyA melon vine on 7 July with hundreds of round droplets standing on every upper leaf surface after fresh rain, small yellow flowers at the nodes and a green ovary already swelling behind several of them, clover in flower crowding its right side.Week of 20 JulyA melon just set on 20 July, an ovoid still wearing its shriveled corolla at the tip and so densely furred that the pale green shows only through the halo, the bristled leaves above it in bright sun and everything below in their own shade.Week of 20 JulyA melon fruitlet on 23 July, furred so densely that the hairs stand out as a halo round its whole outline and the pale green shows through only in the middle, the spent flower still twisted onto its tip and the vine bristles glowing against black.Week of 3 AugustA Charentais cantaloupe on 6 August, still smooth pale apple-green with no netting and no ribs, matt and finely downy with one soft darker band running down it, its own coarse sawtooth leaves around it and deeply cut ones intruding at the corner.
