This is probably heresy, but I grew five sugar babies one year and five tiger babies in each of the past two years in a 25-gallon whiskey barrel. In each case, I got two melons per plant on three of them and one per plant on two of them (8 total). I would think you could grow two in 10 gallons. I would start with three or four and only cull all but two when the first fruit starts to form. There can be so many problems when they are young.

Just keeping my inventory as Up-To-Date as I can. GONE: Annuals: Baby's Breath Herbs: Sponge Gourd Vegetables: Pepper Sweet Banana 'Cubanelle' and Watermelon Bush 'Sugar Baby' ADDED: Vegetables: Summer Squash http://www.gardenweb.com/members/exch/zippy37 HAPPY GARDENING! zippy37

Ther are quite a few "bush" cultivars. they are not really bush but have short stubby vines that take up less than half the space of a regular melon. The only Yellow flesh that I know in that category is the bush Desert King. For a small "icebox" watermelon, Yellow Doll is the best that I have tried, but there are several new ones on the market. Among the open pollinated cultivars, Orangeglo and Tendersweet are the best for me. They are big melons tho.

Susan, You're welcome. You hill up potatoes when they're grown in the ground. When I plant in containers, I partially fill a tall container with soil and plant the potatoes. When the initial stolon emerges above the soil level, I add more soil to the container when the stolon is an inch or two tall. As it keeps growing, I keep adding soil until the soil is as high in the container as it is going to go...maybe 2 or 3" below the top of the container. That's one of the advantages to growing potatoes in containers---no hilling up, just adding soil in a container. Some folks on the vegetable forum have experimented with growing potatoes in bottomless 'frames' or 'trays' they stack on top of an existing soil-filled bed. As the potato plant grows taller, they add another frame and fill it with soil. They haven't had quite the results (tons of potatoes) they've hoped for as the potatoes will not form new potatoes endlessly along the stolons forever. I do not know if they had control plants grown in the ground to compare with the boxes or frames they kept stacking and adding vertically. To me, containers seem simpler than adding stacked boxes or frames. Potatoes make their best growth in our climate early in the season while the soil and air temps are cooler and while rain is (hopefully) falling. Research at Texas A&M University when I lived in Texas showed potatoes make their best growth when temperatures range between 60 and 75 degrees during the day and 45 and 55 degrees at night. We don't stay in that temperature range very long, so early potato planting is critical to success and also is key to getting bumper crops of potatoes. We get way too hot too early to expect amazing potato yields in our climate because once soil temps hit 85 degrees, potato initiation ceases. Our weather is really better-suited to sweet potatoes than regular potatoes. You'll notice that Oklahoma is not a hotbed (pun intended) of commercial potato growers. Dawn