Some of your questions are a bit controversial, yipla. By that I mean not everyone agrees ;-) Wayne, on the veggie gardening forum is a melon growing guru. I don't think he does any in containers, but he has a wealth of knowledge on all things melon. My guesstimate on number of fruit per plant is 'as many as grow to size in a reasonable time.' Kind of generic answer, huh? Generally pruning off fruit is done with the varieties one wants to grow to the largest size possible or to get fruit ripe in advance of a frost , but this isn't the case with sugar baby. Also, it should be a fairly vigorous vine so should be able to mature all fruit it produces, but I would pop over to the veggie forum and seek out Wayne for more experienced guidance on this. Should you cut off side branches on vine crops after you have selected the fruit you wish to keep? Again, a controversial question, but my answer is 'no'. The leaves are feeding energy to the plant so leave them alone. The contrasting answer is that the more leaves, the faster the plant loses water so kind of balance those priorities as you see fit.

" There is also a very large, and interesting plantation of them in Maui, not the southeast, but still a really warm humid climate" Nope! Wrong again! The redwoods there are mostly planted above 5000', a climate where dewpoints are always << 60F, thus nights are going to be in the 50s at worse, and even 30s and 40s in winter. Highs probably never hit 80f, even during the worst heatwaves. Not at all a "really warm humid climate". A few are a bit lower, down to 3000', but their growth seems to become abnormal. Even there, summer are as cool or cooler than Boston's!

Well, one of my AG vines actually set a pumpkin this past week, and similar to last year, this late pumpkin set on the surviving portion of the vine which was climbing along the top of a wire fence. Obviously not much time for a big one, AGAIN!!! Is it the heat (VA is hot in the summer)? I noticed that many of he larger pumpkins seem to come from more northern areas, however I always attributed this to the extra daylight hours, maybe it also is a combination with cooler nights? Last week our nights started dipping into the lower sixties, and POW, a pumpkin set Next year (hope blooms eternal) I'm going to start my plants inside and get them out by the end of April. Damn the experts!!!.....Elder

Weirdtrev- Thank you, the "calabaza" pack said 300-400 pounds is possible so that sounds like an Atlantic Giant. That said the vine looks just like the Big Max. Our first frost around here typically isn't until late October. I'm glad I have the two pumpkins set that I do. I tried growing some a few years ago and the squirls would get them as soon as they set. No sign of that problem. Thank you very much for the insight. Hopefully my Atlantic Giants will bloom soon. It has been really hot (aveage high 89) for July and not one drop of rain until today. We got quite a bit of rain today so I think that will help a lot.