Planted melons for the first time this year. Seem to be producing more than I expected. Still a good way away from harvest but more successful than any of the tree fruit I’ve grown this summer.
Athena Cantaloupe
Honey Rock
Honeydew
Charentias Melon
Sugar baby watermelon
Wow those are beautiful melons! Look at those things! There is nothing better on a hot summer day than a sugary melon and i know those types!
Thanks Clark. Really looking forward to sampling them. My kids love cantaloupe and watermelon so these should be a big hit when they eventually ripen.
nice melons. my Georgia candy roaster squash vines trying to swallow my 3 watermelon vines despite me pinching off all new growth. that things a monster and has set 6 squash. hopefully if i can control the squash vine i might get a few watermelons as well. weathers been nice and warm with decent precip so im hopeful. maybe try some other cantaloupe and melons next summer…
Need some advice:
@speedster1 You’re definitely ahead of us in 5b Northern Colorado. What is the sheeting underneath your melons?
It’s just a standard weed barrier purchased from Menards. Looking back I didn’t install it properly and it is not working very well.
I’ve tried black plastic and landscape fabric to heat soil early season and as weed barrier, but it becomes a vole hangout, and they are my biggest problem with melons. Yours looked more transparent, so I could see ‘em. But I am also trying to use less plastic in my garden. So many choices to make 
Your Kholodok are showing some stress and are not sizing up like normal. You can use the suggestions I’ve previously posted to tell when they are ripe. Keep in mind Kholodok is a storage watermelon which has to be stored indoors cool and dry for a month or two to reach best flavor.
They spent too long waiting to be transplanted I think and were nearly drowned by the rain twice right after they finally got in ground. I checked on them. They had the hollower knock sound. The tendrils were still completely green though. So I’ll see how they are in a few days.
I direct sowed another seed a few weeks ago when the first plants were looking a little melted/drowned from the rain. Hopefully that’ll develop normally and maybe produce a fruit or two before frost. Thanks for your help!
I feel I made a mistake putting up a little arch for mine this year, as I got distracted and now the baby melons are too big to go on top of the arch panel.
but! they are baby melons, I’ll use some fabric to support them and not worry too much. one fell off today as I was weeding and I was upset.
I’ve got collective farm woman, Minnesota midget, orangeglo, Charles grey, and “black” something or other in there. also a single honeydew that my partner saved seeds from and insisted on (it started vining this week and likely won’t ripen in time, but I’ll try anything for him). I think I even put a torpedo melon in there. it’s a mess but I kind of like the melon patch to be confusing.
I did two melon patches this year but the other isn’t going fast enough, I will only likely get melons from this patch.
try using cheap plastic funnels to support them. probably wont hold the bigger ones but the smaller ones, no problem.
I had heard that nasturtiums can help repel cucumber beetles, which have been a bother to my melons. This year I’ve experimented having beds with and without nasturtiums. Not perfectly controlled, as I used different melon varieties in the beds. But it does seem to make a significant difference and reduce number of beetles in the beds with nasturtiums.
My single Golden Midget. The whole plant is yellowing and I’d like to remove it to make way for the ever expanding cucamelons. Should I wait a few days or is it O.K. to pick? It is a little more yellow than in the photo.
I’d wait as long as you can. a few days yes.
my melons are a thicket and I can’t get in to see them without a climb. they are now pumping out lots of small baby melons, along with the few larger ones that pollinated just before our heat wave.
Tigger melons, perhaps?
looking for melons has become a strange daily morning adventure. I ended up using tied netting to support the hanging ones
Strawberry watermelons have been rolling in. It’s the only one I grow now, and I save seeds yearly. It’s the most forgiving, consistently sweet and tasty melon we’ve ever grown (and we’ve tried a lot); and it gives good results even in a rough season. After several years of growing, I’ve yet to taste a bad one—no exaggeration. Also easy for me to judge the ripeness of these. They probably average around 20 lbs.—though they occasionally get to be in the 30s, and I’ve had a couple of 40+ pounders in the past. Makes necked melons sometimes. I’m trying to select this trait out, but if that doesn’t work, no biggie.
Cuke beetle and squash bug pressure went through the roof this year. Usually the latter will “bug off” and mostly disappear if I keep up a neem/spinosad rotation early in the season—but they were absolutely relentless this year. The beetle/bacterial wilt pressure was so high that even constant spraying couldn’t save my cukes—though I did get a limited harvest before they all died. And my watermelon vines are looking rather more ragged than they should at this time of year thanks to the bugs. Think my neighbor must’ve been breeding the things . . . Anyone else have unusual trouble with these pests this year?
I grew those this year too. So
Far not super impressed on the flavor. But have the largest one coming yet.
Georgia Rattlesnakes and Harvest Moon seedless have been great again. Largest GR was only 35lbs vs 45 last year.
Yellow Buttercup seedless. Decent but no extraordinary on this first one. I have a few more to sample. So far out of the many seedless I’ve tried growing, only Harvest Moon is good enough to keep growing. I’ve ordered Odell’s White, Yellow Moon and stars, Jubilee improved, and Crimson Sweet Virginia select strain as my new sample varieties for next year- All seeded varieties.
