I can't seem to grow a sweet melon. Help?

[ac21686]

ddsack, have you measured the brix of the Halona by any chance? Curious what you've been able to achieve in such a cold zone.

[ddsack]

No, I have no way to measure, but they are sweet and taste better than grocery store melons to me. Actually, I have good sunny summer heat during July and August, with mid 70-s to 90's, low 80's is common. My main problem is my growing season is so short, with cool weather arriving by mid-Sept. My weather in the center of the continent has more extremes than states close to the either coast. Our winters are much colder and longer, but summers are sunny and comfortably hot. My part of the state seems to have near drought conditions in the summer for the past 4-5 years. All the rain goes north or south of us.

[ac21686]

Sharlyn are growing well. I think I'm about 10-14 days out from being able to at least start trying them when they look more like a honeydew. It's been exceptionally dry and hot here but we do water them 2 times a week. Thinking about cutting it off entirely now that I THINK we're closer to harvest but I'm worried about them just shriveling up past a point of being able to save them. What to do? Fingers crossed I can get a decent melon for a change!

[JRinPA]

Well here's hoping they turn out super sweet!


I have three sets of Sarah's Choice F3 planted. One set of three with rubber mulch over them growing up a fence. A second set of four in a raised row on the ground. And a third set of something like twelve growing up a trellis that gets well watered pretty much every evening. There are some melons set at each but I am terrible at deciding when to harvest.


So far I've only noted two vines dying from the striped cucumber beetles, and I cut them way back ahead of the wilt and maybe saved the rest of the plants.



I haven't thought about cutting water this year, nature is doing enough of that.

[ac21686]

I’ve had one Charentais that I’d grade a 7/10. It smells quite a bit better than it tastes, unfortunately. There’s another small melon that is awful and the larger variety (with deep ribs/stripes on them, a Tuscan type, probably) my uncle grew that’s horrendous. He didn’t want to thin the fruit to just 1-2 per vine as I recommended, so I’m sure that didn’t help. I’d be curious to know if others in similar climates have to thin the fruit in order to actually get good, very sweet melons. I wonder what commercial practice is in much longer growing seasons.

Waiting on Sharlyn. We planted it later so they’re not ready just yet.

[ac21686]

Still waiting on Sharlyn. They say you can pick it green and it’ll have a honeydew flavor. I tried one like that and it tasted like a barely sweet cucumber. I’m hoping when they reach the yellow/golden stage they might be good. They thinned them out but it was probably too late. From my understanding of melons, the sugar is produced through the leaves and the melon plants seem to start doing poorly well before the watermelons (which look remarkably healthy). Those plants just don’t seem to remain healthy enough to have good leaves on them. I’d really rather not do an extensive spray program to keep them alive. What a frustrating experience lol. There was a prominent melon grower at the University of New Hampshire but I believe he passed away. I think I’ll try emailing northeastern agriculture departments and see if they may have any insight.

[dshreter]

Has anyone had success growing melons in an Earthbox? There are a couple bit of information here and there online, but not a lot of data points claiming success. I'm hoping to try this out next year and looking for advice on fertilizer and if results were actually tasty.

[MrsJustice]

Yes, I am growing my Native American Watermelons in a earthbox I made myself out of wood and growing out in the fam area. The Melons in my Farming area is doing better.

[atilgan]

I have yet to taste a sweet melon this year. Kajari was very productive and they look really cool but out of 6 only one was barely edible. For watermelons so far Tigrimini f1 (first 2 picture micro seeded) and Little Darling f1 both were very early and very sweet.

[PaulF]

Hey! I finally found a pumpkin. I know it is not a sweet melon, but in all the vines this year there is one muskmelon, one small watermelon so even a small pumpkin turning orange is a victory for this melonless grower.

[ac21686]

I tried another Sharlyn, this time more yellow. I can tell that it’s getting there. The plants are still alive but fading. I think with better practices - fruit thinning, less vines per hole - in the future, this melon would be very good if you can keep the plant alive as long as possible. I’m hoping a few more can ripen to a darker yellow rind with no green flesh towards the rind.

You can see in the third picture on the seed page how yellow theirs is compared to mine:

https://www.fruitionseeds.com/shop/v...sharlyn-melon/

[JRinPA]

I tried cantaloupe in my rain gutter buckets a few years back. I'm not sure how far on an earthbox that is. They did not do well. Some melons formed but were practically tasteless. They were swarmed by striped cucumber beetles early on and the leaves wilted back.


That is interesting about the sweetness coming from the leaves. Honestly I thought more about proper nutrition from the ground making it sweet and water and leaves making it big.


So far I have picked three cantaloupe. These are about an F3 off Sarah's Choice. Two looked like normal cantaloupe and were sweet. I saved seed from those two. I'll call them F4 next year. The last one was from a different plant, and looks different - it never developed a waffle pattern and was longer. It was both sweet and very sour with a cantaloupe aftertaste!



I have 4 normal looking bigs ones at another spot, but they haven't slipped yet.

[atilgan]

I should make a remark for the watermelon Tigrimini f1. After eating several Tigrimini watermelons and also store bought micro seeded watermelons It seems to me that similar to seedless watermelons micro seeded watermelons also have a different aroma of their own.

[b54red]

The very best sweet melon I ever grew was one called Ambrosia. It was a large cantaloupe with very thick walls that was very aromatic but it took quite a while to grow to size and ripen. If I didn't have so many RKN in my soil I would still be growing it but the nematodes just ruined them the last time I grew them. Ambrosia was at least twice as sweet as any other melon I have grown and if you have the right soil and know how to grow cantaloupes I would recommend you try it if you can find it.

Bill

[JRinPA]

I bought some half price seed at the end of last season, cantaloupe and watermelon. Now I am pretty I will just give up trying for melons. It just seems like an ongoing ordeal that I never seem to win, trying to grow them in whatever odd spot to hide them from the cucumber beetles. Last year's just didn't finish well. They never handle the rain in the heavy soil. If I had more room and devoted rows, probably, maybe. I learned a bit last year, refresher course I guess, it made look closer at the sugar production, Calvin cycle, etc.

If I were to try melons here again...I'd probably want to add a lot of sand to a few rows and then crop rotate yearly with something else that wants the same looser soil. I just get too much splitting when they are coming ready in late August. Sweetness was not usually the problem here, just no room or devotion to growing them since they all come at once anyway.