Topic: flower on my melon!

[campanula]

looked at the triffids this morning and lo! a lovely yellow flower on my cantalupe - so excited! I have been panicking about these melons so this weekend, I have a plan and many overflow pipes and T junctions and polythene - yep - I am building a polytunnel! Can't wait! I will have 6 cukes and three melons ready to take up residence. Not to mention the many peppers and tomatoes! Yippee!
Now, how about a novice guide to melons and cukes - I know there is a lot of nipping, pollinating and sexing!!! oooh!
cheers all, suzy
(in a state of high excitement)

[Doris_Pinks]

Cripes, my melon seeds haven't even broken the surface yet!! See what happens when you go away in April :'(

[The gardener]

Here is a little bit on melon culture Suzy;

    *  Week 25; When the main stem has reached the top of the support, pinch out the growing tip.

Similarly, lateral shoots should be pinched out when they have formed five leaves.

    * Week 27; Male and female flowers develop on the secondary laterals, the female being distinguished by a swelling like a miniature melon just beneath the bloom.

Artificial pollination is necessary to set fruits: strip the petals off a male flower and push the exposed centre into a female flower.

Midday is the best time for pollination.

Do not allow more than four fruits to develop on each plant, and not more than one on a single side-shoot.

During early growth a humid atmosphere is essential; provide this by frequent damping down and syringing of the leaves.

When the fruits have reached their full size less humidity is required.

On hot sunny days, lightly shade the glass; all other times, let the plants have as much light as possible.

    * Week 30; When the fruits are about the size of a tennis ball, commence feeding with a high potash liquid feed.

Stop feeding when the fruit is fully grown.

As the fruits become heavy, support them with nets attached to the greenhouse wires.

p.s. Not sure if this article should be in the watershed section or not?  ;D

[Mrs Ava]

I have been reading with interest how to correctly grow cucs and melons and just wondered, what happens if you leave the plants to do their own thing?  I guess you could end up with a HUGE plant, and no fruits.  I only ask as in the past I have grown cucs and was totally uneducated in the nipping shoots back and boy and girl flowers, and I still had more cucs than we could eat - father-in-laws tortoise wasn't complaining tho!  This year tis going to be a military manoevre, I want melons the size of basket balls  :o and cucs as long as my arm  :o :o  ;D ;D

[john_miller]

Nope, EJ. Melons left to their own devices produce loads of fruit. The one year I bothered to figure it out I harvested 4,000 kg from 3,000 row metres- 1.3kg per row metre. That is in my relatively cool climate. I would imagine that California probably gets higher yields.
I would disagree strongly with one part of TG's advice. I have grown melons under protection without shading. Why shading would be neccessary further North than me escapes me (I'm roughly 10⁰ of latitude South of the U.K.). The only problem I had was that the melons (specialised cvs. only) matured far too quickly in the heat and I was harvesting morning and evening.

[kingkano]

I was going to grow mine in the open, thereby removing the hassle of pollinating etc.  Doesnt this work then??  Must you have a greenhouse to grow them?

I might pinch them out if they get big, but otherwise was going to mostly leave to their own devices.  Thanks for your info there john!

[The gardener]

Thanks John for your observation.

What I am getting at is preventing leaf scorch if the leaves are too near the glass.

I agree this is not a major problem in my area but it can happen.

In fact what I have been known to do if leaves touch the glass is remove them, thus allowing more light into the plant.

[john_miller]

The problem, as I see it, TG, is that by shading the leaves you are shading the whole plant, including any ripening fruit. Given the provenance of melons (central Africa) a few leaves could  be sacrificed in the quest of maintaining high light to help ripen the fruit- unless of course you find melon leaves inherently attractive!
KK- 30 years ago the foreman where I worked in the U.K. grew melons in his otherwise empty, for the summer, cold frames. From what I hear the U.K. climate is a lot warmer now than then so outdoors may not be a problem. Some people have posted comments here, in the past, about growing melons outdoors sucessfully last year too.
I also wish to correct myself; my actual yield the one year I worked it out was 10,000 lbs (that was what I sold, it doesn't include non-marketable fruit- white-tail deer love almost ripe melons!) from 2,500 row feet. How I metricated 2,500 feet into 3,000 metres is inexplicable (tiredness?). 5 kg m^-1?  

[The gardener]

Thanks John, I must admit what you say makes sense.

Basically what I mentioned re-shading was from information gleened from an old gardening friend of mine, and in most instances I have never really questioned his advice.

I think this year I will take particular note of things

On a slightly different matter...........what varieties do you grow? Here in the UK I find the seed merchants supply somewhat limited.

I am having a go with some seed saved from a melon purchased from the supermarket.

To press I would say the plants compare favourably well with the seed merchant varieties, so hopefully the fruit does as well.

I tried this practice with watermelons i.e. bought/saved seeds, and to date, the best results I have had were from seed saved from a melon purchased from a roadside vendor whilst holidaying in Egypt.

I must admit I get a great deal more pleasure from my gardening these days by trying out these sort of experiments.

Diversifying a bit, each year I experiment with saved seed from flowers to see what I come up with.

This year I am experimenting with Penstemons. I potted on 100 yesterday in preparation for growing on in a nursery bed.

Hopefully I can come up with some new colours.

Finally, as I always say you are never too old to learn I know I am still learning, and much of that stems from these forums.

Once again,thanks John

[john_miller]

Last year 'The Garden' did a feature on melons. In it was mentioned that cv 'Early Dawn' has an Award of Garden Merit. Over here Early Dawn (76 day relative maturity) is seen as a good way of killing your market as it is so poor compared to other cvs.. The standard melons here are cvs. 'Goldstar' (82 days) and 'Superstar' (86 days), both available from Harris Moran Seeds, a Rochester, N.Y. based company. Both were bred at Cornell University and are over 40 years old. Botanically they are muskmelons making them both well adapted to cooler conditions. Superstar is huge (6-8 lbs.) and are not really suitable for todays smaller families (somehow or other New Jersey growers do manage to sell them though). The best melon I grow is cv. 'Saticoy' (90 days)- relatively late, very sweet, wonderfully firm flesh. Also a HM seeds product.
Others I have tried: 'Crenshaw'- an old melon with a devoted following. Large, late (this is the one I grew in the greenhouse). 'Earli-Dew', to ready to split (tasted good but unsellable because of the splitting). 'Galia'- great flavour (I love these), but split more than I needed when I let the sugar develop (i.e. I had to harvest early to avoid this), 'Charentais'- total waste, just not adapted to my conditions.
Two others I have heard good reports about (and have longevity behind them) are 'Burpee's hybrid'  and 'Ambrosia', both available from Burpee's.
As for always learning: I still am, I know that. Even though my paper qualifications in horticulture exceed those of any TV gardener whose college experience I know of, these boards give me a motivation to keep extending my knowledge and also refresh that which I have forgotten- although I do wonder if I post more information than is really needed sometimes!  

[The gardener]

You say John>> although I do wonder if I post more information than is really needed sometimes!

As far as I am concerned carry on as you are, if you write about something that isn't news to me, I just scan over it and read the next bit.

I think this is quite a common feeling, my view is; if someone has covered a subject in the forum/s and I have nothing more to offer then I don't bother replying.

[Mrs Ava]

Yay John, you post away and be as long and as technical as you like, I adore reading your 'lessons' and love learning and hearing about all the different ways people grow and what they grow.  Don't you dare stop now or I fear a revolution!  ;D

[Multiveg]

Only got two leaves on my melon, got some way to go before flowers, I suspect.

[Mrs Ava]

Bloody slugs ate mine so I have had to start again!  Weeks before I will be getting flowers!  :'(

[The gardener]

Thanks John for naming the varieties, can't say I have heard of any of them here in the UK

Next question.........same subject.

Can I confirm we are on the same type of Melons.

When we in the UK talk of Melons we are generally talking about 'Canteloupe' varieties,and these are generally grown vertically, whereas, when we speak of 'watermelons' we talk of the large ball varieties 10" + diameter. that grow on the ground.

How do the ones you grow compare?

[campanula]

gosh! thank you all! I have now nipped off the laterals (which solves my bewilderment regarding fitting what I imagined would be an enormous plant into a coldframe) and am getting ready for melon sex! ooh - this is too good to be true (yep, I l know there will be wondering what I have been doing for thrills lately, ahem) Do I do this with the cukes too?
keep up the good work - fantastically useful info. cheers, suzy

[john_miller]

TG: I have been assuming that you were talking about 'Galia' type melons! 'Canteloupes' are botanically different from what is grown on the east coast of the U.S., here we grow 'muskmelons'. Canteloupes are adapted to dry, warm conditions (not my recollection of the U.K.!), as found in the desert west of the U.S.. Muskmelons are more suited for the moister, but still warm, conditions of the eastern half. Canteloupes have a smaller seed cavity than muskmelons and the flesh is firmer and drier. They ship better due to the latter characteristics but muskmelons are probably the better 'fresh' melon (not that I'm biased!). What varieties can you get?
No-one here needs to trellis melons as they grow quite happily outside, on the ground, just like watermelons (they have almost the same relative maturity). All are selections of Cucurbita melo. Just for general information: the round 'ball' watermelons never proved successfull over here, the normal reason given is that they don't look like real watermelons. There are varieties, 'Oasis', 'Paradise', among others, that have the same relative maturity as 'Sugar Baby', but look like 'real' watermelons.
 The reason that I was specific about the melons I grow is that Ruud seems to have access to many U.S. seeds, does anyone else?
Next question; why nip off the laterals?

[The gardener]

Thanks John,

This is the watermelon I grow, seed saved from a watermelon I bought when in Egypt.





The types we can buy are Blenheim Orange, Ogen, Sweetheart.

I am having a go with seed collected from a shop bought striped variety and Ogen as back up.

Don't have any photos as yet, if I am successful with them I will drop a picture in then.

[Mrs Ava]

Wow TG, I am mega impressed!  I can only hope that the slugs leave my watermelon seedlings alone long enough so that I can grow one like that!  Makes my mouth water looking at it!!

[kingkano]

I am trying three this year, without holding my breath, they are Fastbreak, Ogen and Temptation.  Fastbreak is meant to be the fastest maturing or something, we'll see.  I really wanted to try banana melon but didnt get around to getting the seeds in!!  Better for my first try to have these tho I spose :)

Speaking of, do melons do the whole lots of manure thing like pumpkins etc?  I was planning to mulch one section of the plot heavily with manure shortly, and if I can plant melons into that even better!

cheers

ken