Melons easy or difficult?

[noviceveggrower]

Hi everyone,
Was just wondering about the best way to grow melons. Not bothered about variety as the kids just love them.
Have looked online at a couple of seed places and they seem to sell quite a few varieties but was just wondering if there is one you could recommend to a novice grower.
Are there any tips or special treatment you have to give them?
Thanks. It will save me a fortune.

[Hazel at the Hill]

I love melon too, but I've never grown them as I think they need the protection and warmth of a greenhouse.

I think they grow like triffids if the conditions are right, but someone with more experience will be along shortly, I expect.

[Philthy]

Never grown them myself. But I was at Wisley once and saw them being grown in one of the glass houses. The plant was trained up a frame and over a pergola type structure; the individual melons were being cradled in string bags to support their weight as they swelled. I know onion / orange bags are suitable for this purpose, or anything stretchy - tights maybe. But yes, my understanding is that they need a lot of warmth, so outside is probably not an option.

[scarey55]

I managed to grow a teensy little one in 2006

It was inside a walk in blowaway greenhouse and the only one that I managed to grow from 4 plants. I think I pollinated it with a small paintbrush once the flowers opened.



When I say teensy, it was about the size of a tennis ball but it tasted wonderful. My neighbour manages to grow them most years and, although I am in France, the weather here isn't that different to UK.

I didn't give it any special treatment, maybe a feed with tomato fertiliser but I'm not even sure that I did that. In fact, I didn't know that it was there until I found it hiding behind the pot (probably the reason it made it that far )

Not sure of the variety, might have been Lidl Charentais but I would say give them a go if you have a Lidl near you - the seeds aren't too expensive and ...who knows, we may get a hot summer

PM me if you want a few seeds from my neighbour's melons.

[Bill HH]

I am trying some this year in the greenhouse, I shall treat them like cucumbers. I am not going for the large types on the grounds that they will most likely take longer to grow and ripen, if I can get them to fruit in pairs I rather fancy using my wifes old bra's to support them, it seems only right somehow.

[roitelet]

Grew then last year in a polytunnel and won't bother this year. I did get some melons but for the space they took and the necessity to hand polinate they are not worth while. Better return from a couple more tomato plants.

[PyreneesPlot]

I grow a few plants outside down here each year with mixed success - we can be hot (low forties) but more usually it is in the high twenties low thirties, but with a long season.
I grow charentais type which rarely get to the size you see in the shops but taste amazing. They get exactly the same treatment as squashes, bunged in the ground when it is warm enough maybe with a bit of extra compost/manure and then get a liquid feed (nettle, borage, comfrey) once a week with everything else.
The smell is amazing when they are ripe, but tbh with limited greenhouse space I wouldn't bother in the UK.

[AllInContainers]

If I can conjure up room for them I'll be trying a couple of varieties outside in pots. Supposedly the varieties I've chosen will work in the UK - but outdoors in a North facing garden in Yorkshire ......

I'll be sure to report back after it's all gone horribly wrong

[Scarlet]

I've tried a couple of times in the sectioned off "hot end" in my GH. I've only ever managed one very small grapefruit size.I like a little return for my efforts so I grew other things last year.

[greenishfing]

I have attempted melons a few times in the greenhouse and not done particularly well until last year.

I grew a variety called pepito (Unwins seeds) They tasted amazing, warm from the plant. I only averaged 3 per plant but I having another go this year

[BertieFox]

Two basic problems with melons: 1. Ensuring you get more than one fruit pollinated at the same time, as two won't succeed if several days/weeks apart. 2. Waiting for them to ripen.

If you are in a cool summer climate, choose a small fruited melon. Wait until the main growing shoot has reached three feet or so and then pinch it out. This will encourage side shoots which will bear the female and male flowers. The female flower is the one with the little 'melon' behind the flower. If you don't get several to open at the same time, don't worry, just go on pinching out and wait. Your plant wants to make fruit, only make it wait until you have three or four female flowers at the same time which you can pollinate with a male flower.
2. You MUST start reasonably early, as melons which only start forming fruit in late August are never going to ripen in time. After that, it's just a question of cutting back on the watering as soon as the fruit start to swell otherwise the flavour will not be sweet and the fruit will not ripen as it should.

[Bill HH]

I am rapidly going off the idea.

Can anyone tell me why you have to hand pollinate? my cucumbers and tomatoes managed to do it on their own.

[Kirk]

Grew a couple last year outside with no special work.
Propogated them inside and planted outside when about 4 inches high.
Planted into 2 large pots, guess about 20" across.
Used a mix of compost and a bag of rotted manure, they need the food.
2 sizeable bamboos were the uprights for a course plastic mesh for them to grow up.
Placed the pot where it got sun and out of the wind.

Got 2 decent sized melons, the third was too small, I limited the plant to those 3 initially, I did propogate and plant them out rather late so could have got a couple more.

I planted Alaska, the person at Moreveg said they were reasonable for colder areas (UK).
Grew Minisotta Midget and that acted as the cross pollinator, however that was later in growing then the Alaska so didn't come to any real size, but the flowers did what I wanted.

The biggest melon was at the bottom and I used a strip of the plastic mesh sort of folded in 3 to create a bed to keep it off the soil - worked well.

May try again as I have the seeds, pot and frame for one to climb just need to get one going early. Suspect if I had got going 4 weeks sooner then I would have managed 4 from a plant.

[WendyC]

I've grown Charentais type before. As said previously not a huge crop but so delicious. The biggest problem I had was with red spider mite so plenty of damping down needed.

[AllInContainers]

The seeds I have are for Sweet Granite Early Melon and Minnesota Midget Canteloupe. As I have limited space melons of any form are ambitious for me spacewise, never mind location and aspect. Even if I don't get fruit, I am hoping the vines will add a nice effect.

The smaller vine may be OK nestled in front of my Jerusalem Artichokes and Dahlia Yams, and spilling out between the Globe Artichoke and other veg in the sunny spot. I'll start if forward till it takes off, but then ease it back so the planter is tucked away but the vine still exposed. I also had a crazy idea of training the longer vine down the back of tree planters along the west facing wall so that the side shoots spill out into the gaps and laps up the afternoon sun without getting underfoot. Does this sound like it could work to those who have grown melons horizontally, or am I talking out of the wrong aperture ... again?

This is all dreamworld stuff at the minute anyway because there's no guarantee there'll be space for either - but it's nice to have a plan