If pruned, you can do two comfortably, but three would be pretty tight. I'd go for it. Misterbaby.

Here is a link that might be useful: Trellissed melons

I think that you have a good plan:i.e. 3 hills, 2 melons per hill. That will give you 6 main vines, on a 5ft wide trllis. You can prune as you go along and see how thick they get. I would think that training those vinse and supporting them/fruits on the trellis is a bigger task. The wines will get plenty of air and light and enough nutrients from the ground. crowded vines(if any)is not a big concern to me. Once you think that there are enough fruits then you can pinch/prune them or just get rid of new fruit setting.
.

Spacing is dependent on the root area that the plant needs to grow well. I've grown melons and pumpkins on trellises, and I find 3 ft between plants works well. Too close spacing, and the fruiting will be reduced.

snowmanaxp

I grow Crenshaws every year (some more successfully than others!), and I'd advise you to not try to put the peppers in the same bed as the melons. Theoretically, there's enough root-space, but the melon vines are wayward and wild! You will probably not be able to prevent them from overwhelming the pepper plants, even if you tie them up every day.

Do you have another place where you can put the pepper plants away from the melons? I grow mine in 5-gallon self-watering buckets on the back deck with lots of fertilizer (against all traditional recommendations), and am nearly overwhelmed with peppers. Wish I'd had better luck with the melons.

But FWIW, I space my Crenshaws at 1 foot each and stagger-plant them on each side of the trellis. That would be eight plants in your case. Since I have raised beds, the shorter vines that grow straight out to the sides can be curled back inside the frame of the raised bed when you don't have to worry about other plants close to the trellis -- sometimes the vines just cannot be tied to a trellis.

Thanks for all of your feedback.

Misterbaby,
I have read that article you linked. I saw that they suggested 24 inches between plants. And I think they mention trimming to 2 vines per plant. That is how I came up with my original 3 plants over the trellis idea.

Curus,
I am still thinking about how best to construct my trellis. I already have the nylon trellis netting, but it is currently on a frame made out of 2x2 lumber. Based on the article that Misterbaby linked, I am not concerned about using the nylon for the trellis. I will probably make the new frame out of 2x4 lumber with some extra cross pieces to allow me to tie the fruit up to the frame and not the nylon.

Eileen,
When you say fruiting will be reduced, is that on a plant that is pruned as well? I'm not even sure what kind of yield to expect from a properly spaced plant trimmed to a single vine.

Anney,
I really don't have any other place to put those pepper plants because the rest of my garden space will be taken up by peppers and tomatoes already. I did cucumbers behind two rows of peppers last season in the same place. The peppers were crammed into the front 2 feet of the bed, giving 2 feet behind them for the cucumbers. It was a bit of a jungle, but not unmanageable. However, I did very little pruning of the cucumbers (3 plants over 4 foot wide trellis).

I'd love to see a picture of your trellis with all of those plants climbing up it.

How many Crenshaws should I expect from a single vine?

I am currently thinking that I will try at least 3 plants. Based on all of your feedback this should be more than doable. And after reading Cyrus and Anney's posts it is making me think that I could try to cram in 6 plants trimmed down to a single vine.

I tried to limit my Crenshaw melons to 3-4 per vine. I never got that many because sometimes the bugs got to them as they were ripening, and a couple fell off the vines and split, inviting lots of critters to help themselves.

The way you can tell they're ripe is by color and smell -- when one of them perfumes the garden and has turned yellowish, that's when it's picking time, but it can happen quickly. They don't slip easily off the vines when they're ripe like cantaloupes, but eventually they will fall to the ground if you don't support them with slings -- they're 6 to 8 lbs when ripe.

{{gwi:9195}}

Just starting out, the trellis is sturdy cattle panel.

{{gwi:9196}}

Two Crenshaws, not ripe yet. Apologies for the fuzzy photo. They can get to be quite large.

I grew melons on a trellis that was 130 ft. long and spaced every 5'. I personally would'nt go anything less but I do not prune.

{{gwi:9197}}

{{gwi:9198}}

{{gwi:9199}}

This is a pic of about half of the trellis
{{gwi:9200}}

This is the other 1/2
{{gwi:9201}}

Here is a link that might be useful: More Garden Pics

You may want to try smaller melons on a trellis. I did charentais, arava (green fleshed melow) and orange honeydew.

I grew them in ground and also trellissed. I took progression pics on my blog.

Here is a link that might be useful: melon progression pics on blog

Thanks for the pictures. They are great.

Thanks for the info. I thought I would be able to pick up the Crenshaw seeds at the local big box store. I'll probably just try some muskmellons and maybe a honeydew. But it will be a good learning experience.