steve, I grew Sugar Baby, and its always sweet and has short vines. You can also try some of these bush watermelons (found from another gardenweb thread); Bush Sugar Baby Sugar Bush Bush Snakeskin Bush Jubilee Bush Baby II Bush Charleston Gray Bush Desert King

We live in Surrey, England, and have an allotment (for non-UK residents, an allotment is an area of land (125 square metres) that you rent from the town council on an annual basis; there are usually 50 - 100 of these plots, and most have access to water, via a stand pipe (faucet). We're growing Marina di Choggia winter squash. From 6 seeds potted on the kitchen window-sill, four sprouted. One got nibbled by slugs (pernicious creatures!) in the cold frame, but three are doing well on the plot. I have built a trellis (basically two capital 'A' shapes leaning together) out of lengths of 2" x 1" treated timber. The squash are doing fine, but I'm going to have to provide sling supports of some sort, as the fruit can reach 10 or 15kg each. I'll see if I can get some photos uploaded somehow. Cheers

It's been weeks since I've posted. I planted some melons in August. The weather has been very unpredictable the last two months here in Southern Cal. We've had mainly cooler than average temps (5-10 degrees) except for one week of 90 deg. weather. Not surprisingly, the Butterscotch Sweetie performed like champs. There were about 3 melons on each of 8 plants, all of them sweet though smaller than those planted in June and harvested early August. Most of the volunteer Galias have blossoms but they probably won't bear now. The 4 Haogen Melon plants suffered through the foggy evenings and cool days, succumbling to blights. But I managed to get 5 regular sized melons, the rest were too small and I pulled the plants out. Unfortunately, the largest, a 2.5 lb melon was attacked by the ground squirrels. I have one Jenny Lind plant and it produced one one-pound melon, but the squirrels got to it, too. The other two JL melons were too small to be worth anything before the plant died. The good news is that those three melons, if planted in early August in the future, will probably succeed. They were still selling Ambrosia, Galia and Haogens at the Hollywood Farmer's market through early October. Anyway, I am so glad the Butterscotch melons can produce even when others struggle this first week of November.

I agree with Larry, particularly if you're in an area that is relatively dry in summer. Melons like lots of moisture (though not excessive moisture as they mature because it ruins their flavor) and if they are on top of a hill, too much of the moisture may run downhill before soaking deeply into the soil. It kinda depends on how high the hill is and also on how heavy the clay is. Most people here in my area grow their melons in the relatively flat bottom lands, particularly where there is sugar sand or sandy loam that allows their roots to grow freely. I grow melons in a narrow band of sandy soil at one end of my mostly clay garden. I've also grown them in highly-amended clay soil in raised beds, but in a rainy year, that soil can stay too wet for them and then the plants themselves will have disease issues. By the use of the term hill, if you mean a slight rise in the land, it likely will be okay and won't drain too fast, and will function like a raised bed. Still, without knowing if you are in an area that averages 40-50" of rain per year versus one that averages 10-20", we're only guessing. I even tailor my melon planting to the weather I anticipate we will have in a given year. If I am expecting summer rainfall to be scarce, I plant the melons at grade level in sandy soil amended with compost. In that looser sandy soil they can spread their roots endlessly in the search for more moisture. If I am expecting late spring and summer rainfall to be heavy, I plant in the highest raised bed I have, which is highly amended clay, so excess moisture can drain away from the plants. Sometimes you just have to experiment with planting different ways in order to figure out what works best in your location, with your soil and with your average rainfall. We have highly variable soils and highly variable rainfall amounts in various parts of OK, so what works best in an area with plentiful rainfall and well-draining sandy loam might not work best in a different area with dense clay and very low rainfall.