I am gardening in Germany and am quite fascinated by this land race. The climate here in Germany is comparable to your climate Joseph in terms of the cool nights that we get during the summer. Our nights regularly get down to the 50s and sometimes even the mid forties. What we lack are the hot temperatures during the day. Our daytime highs rarely get into the eighties and more often than not hover around the low seventies. Our growing season is fairly long with the first frost often coming in late November, early December. Although the lack of sunshine in the fall and winter months tends to slow growth down to a crawl.
This year I grafted some melons and the difference in growth was astounding. The cold tolerance of the squash rootstock really contributed a lot of vigor, which leads me to believe that the most limiting factor for direct seeded melons here are the cold nightime temps.
I would be interested in trying my luck with Joseph's Landrace here in Germany to see how its cold tolerance performs in our cool summers. Is there anyone in Europe who is growing it?
This year I grafted some melons and the difference in growth was astounding. The cold tolerance of the squash rootstock really contributed a lot of vigor, which leads me to believe that the most limiting factor for direct seeded melons here are the cold nightime temps.
I would be interested in trying my luck with Joseph's Landrace here in Germany to see how its cold tolerance performs in our cool summers. Is there anyone in Europe who is growing it?