• Home
  • popular
  • Events
  • Submit New Event
  • Subscribe
  • About
  • News
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Home + Design
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • Innovation
  • Sports
  • Charity Guide
  • children
  • education
  • health
  • veterans
  • SOCIAL SERVICES
  • ARTS + CULTURE
  • animals
  • lgbtq
  • New Charity
  • Series
  • Delivery Limited
  • DTX Giveaway 2012
  • DTX Ski Magic
  • dtx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Your Home in the Sky
  • DTX Best of 2013
  • DTX Trailblazers
  • Tastemakers Dallas 2017
  • Healthy Perspectives
  • Neighborhood Eats 2015
  • The Art of Making Whiskey
  • DTX International Film Festival
  • DTX Tatum Brown
  • Tastemaker Awards 2016 Dallas
  • DTX McCurley 2014
  • DTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • DTX Beyond presents Party Perfect
  • DTX Texas Health Resources
  • DART 2018
  • Alexan Central
  • State Fair 2018
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Zatar
  • CityLine
  • Vision Veritas
  • Okay to Say
  • Hearts on the Trinity
  • DFW Auto Show 2015
  • Northpark 50
  • Anteks Curated
  • Red Bull Cliff Diving
  • Maggie Louise Confections Dallas
  • Gaia
  • Red Bull Global Rally Cross
  • NorthPark Holiday 2015
  • Ethan's View Dallas
  • DTX City Centre 2013
  • Galleria Dallas
  • Briggs Freeman Sotheby's International Realty Luxury Homes in Dallas Texas
  • DTX Island Time
  • Simpson Property Group SkyHouse
  • DIFFA
  • Lotus Shop
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Dallas
  • Clothes Circuit
  • DTX Tastemakers 2014
  • Elite Dental
  • Elan City Lights
  • Dallas Charity Guide
  • DTX Music Scene 2013
  • One Arts Party at the Plaza
  • J.R. Ewing
  • AMLI Design District Vibrant Living
  • Crest at Oak Park
  • Braun Enterprises Dallas
  • NorthPark
  • Victory Park
  • DTX Common Desk
  • DTX Osborne Advisors
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • DFW Showcase Tour of Homes
  • DTX Neighborhood Eats
  • DTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • DTX Auto Awards
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2017
  • Nasher Store
  • Guardian of The Glenlivet
  • Zyn22
  • Dallas Rx
  • Yellow Rose Gala
  • Opendoor
  • DTX Sun and Ski
  • Crow Collection
  • DTX Tastes of the Season
  • Skye of Turtle Creek Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival
  • DTX Charity Challenge
  • DTX Culture Motive
  • DTX Good Eats 2012
  • DTX_15Winks
  • St. Bernard Sports
  • Jose
  • DTX SMU 2014
  • DTX Up to Speed
  • st bernard
  • Ardan West Village
  • DTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Taste the Difference
  • Parktoberfest 2016
  • Bob's Steak and Chop House
  • DTX Smart Luxury
  • DTX Earth Day
  • DTX_Gaylord_Promoted_Series
  • IIDA Lavish
  • Huffhines Art Trails 2017
  • Red Bull Flying Bach Dallas
  • Y+A Real Estate
  • Beauty Basics
  • DTX Pet of the Week
  • Long Cove
  • Charity Challenge 2014
  • Legacy West
  • Wildflower
  • Stillwater Capital
  • Tulum
  • DTX Texas Traveler
  • Dallas DART
  • Soldiers' Angels
  • Alexan Riveredge
  • Ebby Halliday Realtors
  • Zephyr Gin
  • Sixty Five Hundred Scene
  • Christy Berry
  • Entertainment Destination
  • Dallas Art Fair 2015
  • St. Bernard Sports Duck Head
  • Jameson DTX
  • Alara Uptown Dallas
  • Cottonwood Art Festival fall 2017
  • DTX Tastemakers 2015
  • Cottonwood Arts Festival
  • The Taylor
  • Decks in the Park
  • Alexan Henderson
  • Gallery at Turtle Creek
  • Omni Hotel DTX
  • Red on the Runway
  • Whole Foods Dallas 2018
  • Artizone Essential Eats
  • Galleria Dallas Runway Revue
  • State Fair 2016 Promoted
  • Trigger's Toys Ultimate Cocktail Experience
  • Dean's Texas Cuisine
  • Real Weddings Dallas
  • Real Housewives of Dallas
  • Jan Barboglio
  • Wildflower Arts and Music Festival
  • Hearts for Hounds
  • Okay to Say Dallas
  • Indochino Dallas
  • Old Forester Dallas
  • Dallas Apartment Locators
  • Dallas Summer Musicals
  • PSW Real Estate Dallas
  • Paintzen
  • DTX Dave Perry-Miller
  • DTX Reliant
  • Get in the Spirit
  • Bachendorf's
  • Holiday Wonder
  • Village on the Parkway
  • City Lifestyle
  • opportunity knox villa-o restaurant
  • Nasher Summer Sale
  • Simpson Property Group
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2017 Dallas
  • Carlisle & Vine
  • DTX New Beginnings
  • Get in the Game
  • Red Bull Air Race
  • Dallas DanceFest
  • 2015 Dallas Stylemaker
  • Youth With Faces
  • Energy Ogre
  • DTX Renewable You
  • Galleria Dallas Decadence
  • Bella MD
  • Tractorbeam
  • Young Texans Against Cancer
  • Fresh Start Dallas
  • Dallas Farmers Market
  • Soldier's Angels Dallas
  • Shipt
  • Elite Dental
  • Texas Restaurant Association 2017
  • State Fair 2017
  • Scottish Rite
  • Brooklyn Brewery
  • DTX_Stylemakers
  • Alexan Crossings
  • Ascent Victory Park
  • Top Texans Under 30 Dallas
  • Discover Downtown Dallas
  • San Luis Resort Dallas
  • Greystar The Collection
  • FIG Finale
  • Greystar M Line Tower
  • Lincoln Motor Company
  • The Shelby
  • Jonathan Goldwater Events
  • Windrose Tower
  • Gift Guide 2016
  • State Fair of Texas 2016
  • Choctaw Dallas
  • TodayTix Dallas promoted
  • Whole Foods
  • Unbranded 2014
  • Frisco Square
  • Unbranded 2016
  • Circuit of the Americas 2018
  • The Katy
  • Snap Kitchen
  • Partners Card
  • Omni Hotels Dallas
  • Landmark on Lovers
  • Harwood Herd
  • Galveston.com Dallas
  • Holiday Happenings Dallas 2018
  • TenantBase
  • Cottonwood Art Festival 2018
  • Hawkins-Welwood Homes
  • The Inner Circle Dallas
  • Eating in Season Dallas
  • ATTPAC Behind the Curtain
  • TodayTix Dallas
  • The Alexan
  • Toyota Music Factory
  • Nosh Box Eatery
  • Wildflower 2018
  • Society Style Dallas 2018
  • Texas Scottish Rite Hospital 2018
  • 5 Mockingbird
  • 4110 Fairmount
  • Visit Taos
  • Allegro Addison
  • Dallas Tastemakers 2018
  • The Village apartments
  • City of Burleson Dallas

    The Farmer Diaries

    North Texas farmer cracks secret watermelon code

    Marshall Hinsley
    Jul 7, 2013 | 6:00 am

    Once July begins, serious gardeners start to think about jack-o'-lanterns and pumpkin pie. Pumpkins need about 100 days to grow. Counting back from the end of October puts us at about the first week of July as the right time to plant pumpkins for a fall harvest.

    I've never grown a pumpkin successfully. I've either remembered them too late in the summer for them to have time to mature, or they've never made it past sprouting stage because of summer drought. But farming is a matter of trial and error. I'm not letting past failures discourage me from trying again. I'm giving pumpkins another shot.

    The watermelon secret
    Besides, until last year, I never had a watermelon work out. Every other year or so, I'd plant them along with cantaloupe. Every year, I'd harvest plenty of cantaloupes, but I'd never see even one watermelon grow larger than a baseball.

    What watermelons need in Texas is the opposite of a mound: They need a basin.

    But in the summer of 2012, I harvested about a dozen sweet, juicy watermelons from one 4-by-8-foot bed. This was an unprecedented success — and it wasn't a matter of scaling up. It wasn't like I'd harvested one or two good melons one year, then a few more the following year and eventually a dozen last year.

    No, it was my seeing zero success every year before 2012, then instant success in 2012. This change of fortune came because I finally cracked the watermelon code.

    What was the watermelon secret? Ignore what you read in gardening books and on seed packets about how to grow watermelons — specifically their recommendation to plant them in mounds. These mounds, or hills, are designed to raise the roots of the watermelon plants up from the ground and allow for drainage. Often, if a plant's roots remain too long under water, they'll rot and the plant will die.

    In other parts of the country, that might make sense. But we live in Texas, where even our lakes have good drainage. We don't have a problem with water pooling up for prolonged periods of time anywhere. To plant a watermelon in a way that protects it from flooding is about as necessary as putting snow tires on our cars.

    Watermelons need ample water to grow, and my planting them on mounds was the best way to ensure that they would never get a drop. Our soils create a nearly impermeable barrier to water once they dry out. Trying to saturate a mound of soil is next to impossible; the water just rolls over the top and down the sides. Worse than that, mounds dry out faster than soil at or below ground level.

    Punch bowl
    What watermelons need in Texas is the opposite of a mound: They need a basin.

    I feel confident that I have an effective method for succeeding with crops that have failed for me in the past, especially those planted in the summer drought.

    I came up with the idea of basins after I read Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the book, Wilder describes how watermelons grew along a creek bank near a home in which her family lived. Her mother warned against eating watermelon, but her father found a ripe melon and ate it. Afterward, he contracted malaria, apparently from mosquito bites. This indicated to me that the melons were not growing in a well-drained spot.

    Lacking a creek bank, I tried to re-create an area where the soil could stay moist between watering sessions. Digging a basin was the only way that I could see working out.

    I dug out an area of soil in the shape of an oblong bowl a few inches deep. When I watered the melons, the water pooled up, like filling a punch bowl. The water stayed pooled long enough to penetrate the hydrophobic surface of the soil and reach the roots several inches below. The watermelon plants thrived, producing all the melons I could eat for the summer.

    Later, I learned that the basin approach to agriculture was nothing new. It's been used by Native Americans in the Southwest for centuries — not only for melons, but also for every crop. So I feel confident that I'm in good company and have an effective method for succeeding with crops that have failed for me in the past, especially those planted in the middle of the drought of summer.

    Basin how-to
    Using a hoe, I created a basin by dragging the soil out from a tilled area in my garden, forming a "bowl" about 3 feet in diameter and 5 inches deep. I made sure that the five or six seeds I planted per basin were below ground level, so that the roots will be in soil that stays moist longer than soil at ground level.

    To one of my pumpkin basins, I've added the lower half of an old bucket as an experimental reservoir. I drilled small holes in the bucket to allow water to trickle slowly into the soil without dislodging soil or disturbing the plant's roots, which can happen when I use a watering can. If this added reservoir helps the plants in this one basin, I may make one for every basin in next season's garden.

    Additionally, I added compost from my compost bins and Down to Earth's vegan fertilizer mix to each basin to nourish the growing pumpkin plants. In farming lingo, pumpkins are called "heavy feeders," which means that they need a rich, fertile soil.

    I've chosen Howden pumpkins for jack-o'-lanterns and Sugar Pie pumpkins for cooking; both are available from Botanical Interests. Once the pumpkin seeds sprout, I'll heap several inches of mulch into the basins, which should make the top of the mulch level with the surrounding ground.

    If not for my newfound success with watermelons, I'd not feel very optimistic about my pumpkin prospects. But soon I'll start harvesting another crop of sweet, Sugar Baby watermelons, each as big as a volleyball. I can't help but feel that this year, I'll be carving Halloween decor out of pumpkins from my very own garden as well.

    A watermelon grows in a basin dug into a North Texas garden plot.

      
    Photo by Marshall Hinsley
    A watermelon grows in a basin dug into a North Texas garden plot.
    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars

    Fro Yo News

    Healthy dual restaurant serving smoothies and froyo to open in Prosper

    Raven Jordan
    May 9, 2025 | 12:55 pm
    Red Mango
    Red Mango
    Red Mango

    Smoothies and frozen yogurt are coming to Prosper with two restaurants in one: Smoothie Factory + Kitchen and co-branded Red Mango will open at 1470 W. Frontier Pkwy. #102, on May 17.

    On the Smoothie Kitchen side, they'll serve smoothies, juices, fruit power bowls, toasts, and grilled sandwich folds.

    On the Red Mango side, they'll serve frozen yogurt with a self-serve model featuring four flavors, two additional swirl combinations, and 13 toppings.

    Smoothie Factory was founded in the 1980s; Red Mango was founded in Dallas in 2007 had has 60 locations in the U.S. and internationally. The concepts are siblings — both part of the franchise portfolio of Dallas-based franchising company Brix Holdings, LLC.

    Bringing the concept to Prosper are franchisees Lanford and Chianna Rodgers. Lanford is a former Illinois state trooper and independent insurance business owner, and Chiana is a financial advisor.

    Together, they’re looking to offer a healthy and welcoming experience to a growing city.

    “My professional career has changed over the years, but the one thing that unifies my experience is my purpose to help, support and build a community with new people,” says Chianna. “As I begin my journey as a small business owner and we open our doors to the Prosper community, I’m dedicated to leading a team that feels supported and is passionate about serving high-quality products and creating an unforgettable customer experience.”

    Customers who show up on opening day can expect promotions, giveaways, prizes, and activities.

    ”The opening of the new Smoothie Factory + Kitchen and Red Mango location is one of many of our continuous efforts to provide better-for-you options to our guests by increasing access to healthy and delicious options in our communities,” says BRIX Holdings CEO Sherif Mityas in a statement. “Lanford is a passionate and dedicated owner with a team ready to make a positive impact and change the lives of their guests with fresh food, quality service, and a seamless customer experience. I’m confident that this location will be a Prosper neighborhood staple.”

    openingsice creamdesserts
    news/restaurants-bars

    most read posts

    Italian gourmet grocery gets ready for business in downtown Dallas

    All the Dallas restaurants hosting Mother's Day brunch in 2025

    3 Dallas eateries make OpenTable list of top brunch spots in U.S.

    Loading...