The melons are comfy, warm-weather vegetation. Melons increase easiest in very warm to sizzling local weather summer time spaces. Melons are long, trailing annuals that belong to the cucumber and watermelon family.
The netted melon or muskmelon is steadily known as a cantaloupe, on the other hand should now not be puzzled with the actual cantaloupe, which is a warty rock melon. Each different type of melon that is ceaselessly grown in the summer garden is honeydew. It in conjunction with the casaba, Crenshaw, and Persian melon are ceaselessly referred to as wintry climate melons. They are known as wintry climate melons because of they ripen later and require a longer emerging season than muskmelons.
The emerging knowledge for muskmelons, cantaloupes, honeydew, and other wintry climate melons is similar.
That is all of the data to emerging melons.
Summer season Melons and Wintry climate Melons
- Muskmelons in conjunction with watermelons are termed summer time melons because of they come to harvest from mid to late summer time.
- Wintry climate melons—which may well be grown all over the summer time like muskmelons–are ready for harvest in late summer time and autumn. Wintry climate melons include casaba, Crenshaw, honeydews, and Persian melons.
- Cantaloupes, muskmelons, honeydew melons, and other summer time melons, along with wintry climate melons, have the an identical emerging must haves.
Melons Rapid Emerging Tips
- Sow cantaloupe (muskmelon) seed throughout the garden or set out transplants 3 to 4 weeks after without equal cheap frost date in spring.
- Get began cantaloupe seed indoors 6 weeks previous than transplanting seedlings into the garden. Get began seed indoors in biodegradable peat or paper pots that can be set directly into the garden.
- Cantaloupes require 70 to 100 frost-free days to reach harvest; cantaloupes will tolerate no frost.
Where to Plant Melons
- Plant melons in whole sun.
- Melons increase easiest in unfastened, well-drained, loamy soil rich in herbal subject.
- Add numerous inches of aged compost and aged manure or industry herbal planting mix to the planting bed previous than planting. Turn the soil to 12 inches (30cm) deep.
- Melons want a soil pH of 6.0 to 6.8.
- Melons may also be grown on mounds, raised beds, up trellises, or in flat planting beds. Pre-warm the soil thru placing black plastic or permeable black garden subject matter across the planting area two weeks previous than planting. When planting decrease x-shaped slits throughout the covering.
Melon Planting Time
- Sow melon seeds throughout the garden or set out transplants 3 to 4 weeks after without equal cheap frost date in spring.
- Get began melon seeds indoors about 6 weeks previous than transplanting seedlings into the garden.
- Get began seeds in biodegradable peat or paper pots a minimum of 4 inches in diameter that can be set wholly into the garden as a way to no longer disturb roots.
- Starting melons indoors is really helpful in short emerging season spaces where the soil warms slowly in spring.
- Melon seeds will germinate in about 10 days at 65°F (18°C).
- Melons increase easiest in air temperatures ranging from 70° to 90°F (21-32°C).
- If temperatures exceed 90°F (32°C)
- for numerous days, crops will drop without environment fruit.
- Melons require 70 to 100 frost-free days to reach harvest and will tolerate no frost.
- In cool or short-season spaces, increase smaller varieties that come to harvest quickest.
Additional tips: Melon Seed Starting Tips.
Planting and Spacing Melons
- Sow melon seed 1 inch (2.5cm) deep.
- Area seeds 18 inches (45cm) apart throughout the garden.
- Plant melons on raised mounds or hills which may well be 24 inches (61cm) all over or wider. Mounds warmth in short in spring and stay warmth throughout the emerging season.
- Sow 4 to 6 melons seeds on each and every mound; when seedlings have complicated 3 or 4 true leaves, thin to the 2 or 3 maximum robust seedlings on each and every hill.
- Decrease the thinned seedlings at the soil level with scissors as a way to no longer disturb the roots of the rest vegetation.
- Area mounds 4 to 6 feet (1.2-1.8m) apart.
- Mounds can range in top from a few inches to larger than 12 inches (30cm) tall; mounds will allow vines to run away down the slope.
- Switch an inch or two of soil round the most efficient of the mound to form a rim throughout the most efficient of the mound. The rim will give protection to more youthful vegetation from heavy rains that might in all probability wash away the soil leaving shallow roots exposed; the rim may additionally cling irrigation water all over sizzling local weather.
Additional melon planting time tips: Planting Melons and Squash Early.
Emerging Melons on Vertical Reinforce
- Muskmelons and other summer time melons may also be grown up trellises or fences.
- You can moreover educate melon vines up an A-frame. Lean two trellises into each and every other and tie them together on the most efficient.
- A trellis set towards a solid fence or the wall of a construction will get pleasure from reflected heat.
- Be sure that the vertical reinforce is definitely anchored. Heavy finish end result can tip a trellis late throughout the season.
- Area melons at the base of vertical is helping 12 inches (30cm) apart.
- Train vines up a trellis or other reinforce with elastic horticultural tape.
- Melon vegetation can increase up to 8 feet (2.4m) tall and large or further.
- Most melon vines will reinforce the burden of a melon, on the other hand you are able to use garden netting tied to the reinforce to reinforce melons.
- Melons grown on vertical is helping will get whole sun exposure and superb air flow into which can lend a hand prevent fungal sicknesses.
Emerging Melons in Containers
- Melons are most often too large to increase in packing containers.
- Make a selection a bush, dwarf- or mini-cultivar to increase in a container.
- Make a selection a container a minimum of 18 inches (45cm) massive and deep that can reinforce a vining plant.
- Place a trellis or other reinforce next to the plant to avoid wasting a variety of space and building up yields.
- In short emerging season spaces, prolong the season thru starting melons in packing containers indoors then switch them out of doors when the weather warms.
Melon Vital different Plants
- Plant melons with corn, radishes, beans, and nasturtiums.
- Plant herbs related to dill or bee balm with reference to melons to attract pollinators.
Watering Melons
- Melons require substantial commonplace, even watering for speedy emerging.
- Give melons 1 inch of water (16 gallons/60.5 liters) or further each and every week.
- Water with drip irrigation or a soaker hose to avoid wetting leaves. Wet leaves are susceptible to fungal sicknesses.
- Keep the soil spherical melons flippantly rainy from planting until the fruit begins to increase.
- You can cut back on watering once fruit begins to increase on the other hand don’t let the soil transfer dry. A lot much less water will make stronger sweetness.
- Dry soil every week previous than harvest will produce the sweetest melons.
- Avoid watering vegetation overhead which can result in mildew.
Feeding Melons
- Get in a position planting beds with aged compost; add aged manure to beds the autumn previous than planting.
- Side dress melons with compost or manure tea each and every 2 to a couple of weeks all over the emerging season.
- You can moreover feed melons a diluted solution of fish emulsion each and every 2 weeks.
- Flat, tasteless melons would possibly suffer from a lack of magnesium or boron throughout the soil. Finish end result may also be sweetened thru giving them a dose of Epsom salts and borax. For area garden use, use about 6½ tablespoons of Epsom salts and 3½ tablespoons of circle of relatives borax added to five gallons of water. Spray-mist the vines with this solution.
Caring for Melons
- Cultivate quite spherical vines until they duvet the ground and smother out competing weeds.
- Mulch spherical melon vegetation with straw or dry, chopped leaves to retain soil moisture, slow weed enlargement, and keep finish end result off of the soil.
- Reinforce melons on a low tripod or A-frame trellis to stick them off the wet ground; use netting or a bag to reinforce trellis- or fence-grown melons.
- Pinch once more crops to permit merely 4 finish end result to form on each and every vine. Fewer melons on a plant may well be upper, sweeter, and are to be had to harvest sooner.
- You can moreover pinch away some crops so that a newly pollinated flower begins emerging a brand spanking new fruit each and every two weeks. It’ll stagger the harvest of fruit from one plant.
- For melons sprawling across the ground, place a shingle, tile, 1/2 milk jug, or clay pot beneath each and every melon to stick it dry and prevent rot. These items may additionally soak up solar heat and keep the fruit warmth at night time time.
- Avoid pruning leaves off of vegetation until merely previous than harvest. Leaves lend a hand produce the sugars melons need for sweetness. Pull once more leaves that duvet finish end result to provide finish end result maximum sun exposure.
- Remove all new blossoms that appear within 50 days of the main frost in autumn. This may increasingly from time to time allow the plant to ripen fruit already on the vine previous than the main frost.
Melon Pollination
- Melons produce male and female crops on the an identical plant.
- Male crops appear every week previous than female crops. Female crops have a small bulge (an unfertilized fruit) with reference to the stem end of the blossom.
- Bees or other pollinators will have to carry pollen from male to female crops for pollination, flowering, and fruit set to occur.
Melon Pests
- Aphids and spotted and striped cucumber beetles will attack melons.
- Hose away aphids with a blast of water or pinch out infested foliage.
- Handpick and harm cucumber beetles promptly; they may be able to transmit cucumber bacterial wilt to melons. You can moreover dust or spray adult beetles with rotenone or a pyrethrum-based insecticide.
Additional tips: Melon Emerging Problems: Troubleshooting.
Melon Diseases
- Melons are susceptible to wilt, Alternaria leaf spot, stem blight, powdery and downy mildew, and root rot.
- Plant disease-resistant varieties.
- Keep the garden clean and free of weeds and plant debris that can harbor pests and sicknesses.
- Remove and harm disease-infected vegetation instantly.
- Bacterial wilt is spread thru cucumber beetles.
- Bacterial wilt and stem blight will reason melons to all of a sudden wilt and die.
- Keep watch over cucumber beetles after they appear.
- Powdery mildew and downy mildew are fungal sicknesses that may reason melon leaves to turn gray-white late throughout the season. Protect leaves towards fungal sickness thru spraying with compost tea or a solution of 1 segment skim milk to 9 parts water.
- Make a selection disease-resistant varieties.
- Toughen air flow into thru spacing vegetation as it should be.
Harvesting Melons
- Cantaloupes may well be ready for harvest 70 to 100 days after sowing.
- Most melons on a single plant will come to harvest within a 3 to 4-week period.
- Prohibit water for every week in advance of the harvest to concentrate fruit sweetness. A great deal of water will dilute the sugars throughout the fruit.
- When muskmelons reach full-size rinds industry from green to tan or yellow and stems turn brown they are ready for harvest. The out of doors beneath the netting will turn yellow-brown when the fruit is ripe and the netting will change into further pronounced
- Simple-skinned honeydew melons will change into cream-colored when ripe.
- A ripe melon will increase a spherical crack where the stem attaches to the fruit.
- Ripe melons could have a sweet aroma at the stem end.
- Ripe melons will slip merely off the stem; a half-ripe melon will require further power and would possibly come off with 1/2 the stem attached.
- Harvest melons when they are dry.
- A ripe melon will soften after harvest on the other hand it is going to now not continue to sweet off the vine.
- Cross away melons on the vine until they are ripe.
Additional tips: Tips about how one can Harvest and Store Melons.
Storing and Conserving Melons
- Melons will keep throughout the refrigerator for up to one week, on the other hand sweetness and style would possibly diminish.
- Melon slices or balls may also be frozen or pickled.
Muskmelon (Cantaloupe) Varieties
- Early Season: ‘Alaska’ (65-80 days); ‘Canada Gem’ (78 days); ‘Earligold’ (73 days); ‘Early Hanover’ (80 days); ‘Magnum’ (80 days); ‘Primo’ (79 days); ‘Pronto’ (80 days); ‘Pulsar’ (80 days); ‘Solid Gold’ (80 days); ‘Sweet Granite’ (80 days); ‘Sweet ‘N Early’ (75 days).
- Midseason: ‘Ambrosia’ (86 days); ‘Delicious’ (83 days); ‘Edisto’ (88 days); ‘Four-Fifty’ (90 days); ‘Grande Gold’ (88 days); ‘Hale’s Perfect’ (86 days); ‘Imperial’ (90 days); ‘Pike’ (85 days); ‘Pulsar’ (86 days); ‘Roadside’ (90 days); ‘Super Market’ (90 days); ‘Superstar’ (86 days).
- Late Season: ‘Edisto’ (95 days); ‘Hearts of Gold’ (95 days); ‘Iroquois’ (90 days); ‘Kansas’ (90 days); ‘Saticoy’ (90 days); ‘Top Mark’ (90 days).
- Large: ‘Old Time Tennessee’ (90 days).
- Area Savers: ‘Bush Star’ (80 days); ‘Jenny Lind’ (75 days).
Additional on melon varieties: Muskmelon Varieties: Perfect Bets.
About Muskmelons and Cantaloupes
Muskmelons range from true cantaloupes:
- A muskmelon is round with a yellow-tan netted rind. A muskmelon has salmon, white, or green flesh and weighs 2 to a couple of pounds (.9-1.3 kg). Muskmelons are very sweet to taste and have aromatically perfumed flesh
- A true cantaloupe is oval or globe-shaped with a hard, difficult, scaled or warted-rind (now not a netted pores and pores and skin). The flesh may also be gray-green, yellow-tan and orange, or salmon-orange. An actual cantaloupe weighs about 2 pounds (.9 kg). It is sweet-tasting and aromatic
- The muskmelon or cantaloupe is a longer trailing annual plant.
- Botanical determine: Cucumis melo
- Family: Cucurbitaceae — Cucurbits or gourd family
- Starting: South Asia, tropical Africa
Additional tips: Tips about how one can Increase Wintry climate Melons.
Moreover see: Tips about how one can Increase Wintry climate Melons.
