No success with aubergines or melons

[weestevieb]

Hi all, I've had no success with these and wondered if anyone could help? The meln plants grow like mad but don't seem to flower much and no fruit. The aubergine flowers ok but again no fruit. They are F1 varieties.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Steve

[smallblueplanet]

Search this site and google for the conditions that aubs & melons need to grow in - they like hot temps & lots of light. If that's not the problem then check out techniques for pollinating by hand, never needed to do that to mine though.

[Capsid]

I've not had great success with aubergines or melons either and I grow them in an unheated greenhouse.

For aubergines, don't allow the compost to get too wet. I had mine standing in water trays and got no fruit at all. Also don't grow them in large pots, I think they like restricted roots to stress them to make more fruit. So this year I'm growing mine in 7" pots and on a greenhouse shelf for maximum light.

For melons, I think I don't give them enough room and maybe should give up. Also they need pruning properly and supported well, which I don't do very well. The plants put on plenty of leaf but the fruits don't develop, so again I think you need to stress the plants and I'm going to try smaller pots as with the aubergines.

[selfraising]

Do you perhaps need to sow the aubergines a little earlier. They do tend to flower and lose flowers a lot to start with and then fruits will begin to develop. As to the melon, I can't say I've had a problem with that. Last year I had one plant in a mini 4 tier greenhouse which is in a sunny position. I made sure I regularly opened it to allow pollinating insects in. What F1 varieties did you grow?

[Snadger]

I have struggled to grow aubergines and melons in the past now I don't even bother trying........unless I get any plants given at the allotments of course!

[Alison]

For aubergines, don't allow the compost to get too wet. I had mine standing in water trays and got no fruit at all. Also don't grow them in large pots, I think they like restricted roots to stress them to make more fruit. So this year I'm growing mine in 7" pots and on a greenhouse shelf for maximum light.

I've always struggled with aubergines in my unheated greenhouse but last year I gave them one last chance in the conservatory. They were in 10" pots (as usual) and acutally got watered more than usual (normally get the same as the toms in the greenhouse) and a twice weekly feed of half strength tomato feed. They did loads better and both plants cropped quite well even in such a rubbish summer. I have concluded from this that they actually need more water than toms but haven't seen this written down. They were watered from the bottom every couple of days and left standing in water for an hour or so before the water was drained off. Don't know if you are saying that you had yours sat in standing water, if so then I'd suggest that you don't do this with any plants but I may have misunderstood.

[Jardiniere]

i do grow aubergines and melons but with patchy success...the aubergines i grew from seed were very small , i had better success with the plants from the market which gave me enough for several small two servings aubergine parmigianas. I had them in raised beds, lots of sun. The melons were very small also but we had a very dry summer and i was unable to water the plants on the river plot regularly so they were not very prolific.Will however be trying again this year - practice makes perfect...no tips from me then, just encouragement...keep trying.

[Tomatoking]

Hi all, I've had no success with these and wondered if anyone could help? The melon plants grow like mad but don't seem to flower much and no fruit. The aubergine flowers OK but again no fruit. They are F1 varieties.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Steve

Ours did quite well in the new polytunnel, see our Blog.
A few tips that might help you. With the aubergines, you have to nip out the growing tips when the shoot is about one to two feet long, this will make the flowers set. We had just flowers until we did this, then had loads right up until early December.

Melons. Grow the main stem to the wire, about six feet high. Take off any flowers, that set as small melons, off of the stem.
From about a foot up, train the shoots on another string, stopping it after it has two set melons, after a few weeks, snip the weakest ones off, but leave the leaves on. You can do this with about four or five shoots. If you try to produce too many, they will turn yellow and die off. Aim for about four or five good melons for each plant by snipping off the ones that are not swelling.
Less is more when it comes to melons!
Mr TK

[Sanjo]

Melons. Grow the main stem to the wire, about six feet high. Take off any flowers, that set as small melons, off of the stem.
From about a foot up, train the shoots on another string, stopping it after it has two set melons, after a few weeks, snip the weakest ones off, but leave the leaves on. You can do this with about four or five shoots. If you try to produce too many, they will turn yellow and die off. Aim for about four or five good melons for each plant by snipping off the ones that are not swelling.
Less is more when it comes to melons!
Mr TK

I did more or less the same as Tomatoking. I made my own growbag and then used 8-10" pots which had the melon in it. This was placed on top of the growbag with a corresponding circle cut into it to take the base of the pot.
I watered/fed into the grow bag. My little grandaughter and I grew Emir and also seed saved from a Galia melon from Tesco. We only got two reasonable size melons from each of the Emir plants and two VERY small, very late melons from the galias. The whole greenhouse smelt of melons.
We had great fun nurturing them but when it came to culling the first one of the Emirs I only just made it in time as I hadn't realised that the weight of the fruit (despite being supported in a net bag) had pressed the stem against the metal edge of the seed rack and had almost severed it.
We are the only ones to eat melons and brought it back to the house with great glee, proudly showing off our efforts. When we cut it the juice ran out all over the place. Boy did we enjoy it.
The Galias were almost as good but I think the fact that they were saved seed counted against them.
They were certainly not as vigorous as the Emir.
We are trying again this year, learning from last year's faux pas!! (I hope)

[djhs196]

I did melons and eggplants last year in an unheated greenshouse.

The Eggplants were a little disppointing and not massively productive compared to baby eggplants I grew the previous year outside in a pot - Baby Rosanna (Eggplant Seeds - Eggplant seeds : Baby Rosanna F1 Hybrid) - which were great. So in two minds about which type to grow, but interesting to read what people have said so far.

For the melons, the ones we got we fab tasting! But it was a case of one melon, one plant. I opted to leave any pollination to nature last year, rather than do pollinating from hand to set fruit to see if it was really needed. Based on last year, I'm aiming to do it by hand for this year. Training otherwise is pretty much as described by TomatoKing.

[snakeshack]

last years melon took over a whole 8ft x 4ft bed cvered with polythene sheet over pipe hoops,they had plenty of water and I hand pollinated on several occasions,I had 1 melon about the size of a tennis ball,very sweet but hardly justified the time and effort.
wont be bothering this year!

[Kittypickle]

I had a fairly good success with a packet of Lidl aubergine seeds which I think were a mini plant and there were some that were purple and others that were green with a really pretty white pattern on them. None of them got very big but did the job. I had them in a mini plastic greenhouse with the cucumber and it was quite humid at first. Then as they flowered the first lot fell off and I got busy with a paint brush. Found that the small stems fell off as I guess they weren't strong enough to hold an aubergine so concentrated on the thicker stemmed flowers.

A friend gave me a melon plant and I got one small but tasty melon which was great but probably won't be repeating as it was in a pot and needed a lot of water.

[Snadger]

Have a packet of African Horned cucumber which is in fact a type of melon and has a distintive taste. We shall see!

[selfraising]

I grew melon sweetheart last year. From two plants, got 8 melons. As I don't have much room this small variety was ideal so am doing those again this year.