Randy,

Congratulations! Isn't it wonderful to have your hard work rewarded with tasty, sweet melons. It is just too bad the wife and kids are off visiting, and you have to eat the whole thing all by yourself. What a hardship! It is good there will be plenty more melons to share with them when they return.

I've had a bumper crop of melons too--so much so that I am dehydrating some of them (which further intensifies the flavor) because we can't eat all of them while they are at the peak of freshness. My muskmelons and true cantaloupes have greatly outproduced my watermelons this year, but they were planted in better soil. I wish there were a way to produce home-grown melons year-round, because once you've eaten them fresh-from-the-garden and oh-so-sweet and tasty, you don't even want to buy the ones at the grocery store. (At least I don't want to.)

Good luck with the groundhogs. I've never had to deal with them, but my husband grew up gardening in Pennsylvania where groundhogs are exceedingly plentiful and he says they are a very formidable garden foe.

Dawn

Randy - YEA for you!!! I know how good that feels and tastes! I think maybe your Mrs. is going to be a bit envious! The setting - cutting your first melon, seeing the juice just run down your arm...and then THE TASTE! AWESOME! Me and my DH have delighted in the same thing! Just be sure and share it with the kids...it'll make a memory. Enjoy and do it again...and again...and again.

My hat's off to ya!

Thank you, and there'll be plenty when they get back. My daughter especially loves them, although for awhile she couldn't figure how deer played with cantaloupes (Where the deer and the (c)antalope play).

I haven't seen the groundhog in a few days, could be he's found another gardener's tomatoes to decimate, or maybe one of the neighbors got him. Either way, good riddance.

Randy,

Where the deer and the cantaloupe play. Oh, my, that made me laugh! I just loved it.

My perfect garden, which I'll never have but which I dream of, would have a completely critter proof fence, including a fencing-type 'roof' so raccoons couldn't get to the corn, and a buried underground fenceline (tried it before and it is a disaster if bermuda infiltrates the buried part) so armadilloes and other critters can't dig under. It wouldn't be just a fence either. It would have a layer of window screen type material to keep out the moths that lay eggs which give us such pests as Squash Vine Borers, Tomato Hornworms, tomato fruitworm and corn earworm, etc.

We'll never spend the money for that kind of fence, but I'd love to have it.

My current fence seems to keep out most all the critters except for the racoons that climb over and the occasional rabbit that squeezes through a smaller opening in a woven wire fence than you'd think possible.

Dawn

I'm still drooling over my melons from afar. They keep getting bigger and bigger, but the stems are very firmly attached! The first watermelon I picked was way underipe, so two weeks after I picked another and it wasn't quite ripe, but much closer. We've been eating on it slowly as I wait anxiously for a replacement to volunteer.

First year for me growing melons. I'm growing Ambrosia. I've picked 4 since yesterday evening. They are sweet and good.

This is my first year growing trellised melons. I can see the watermelon and put slings on the ones that are starting to enlarge, but the cantaloupe vines are so thick and outgrowing the trellis, they're starting to cascade back down. The worse concern is that I'm having problems spotting the cantaloupe in the thick vines that need slings. Also, I'm wondering if the cantaloupe at the base of the trellis so hidden by vines will get enough sunlight. No turning back now! I've got a bunch of on steroids cantaloupe vines gone wild to deal with! This was a fun adventure, but I'm starting to think it wasn't such a good idea-for me at least.

Barbara

Barbara,

I have trellised them for years with no problem and one of the main reasons is that the better air flow reduces disease. My melons haven't had any foliar diseases despite the high humidity and high moisture levels, and I hope I didn't just jinx them.

To find the melons to sling, I just lift a bunch of leaves and look underneath for melons and then sling them when I find them. Most of them don't really need slings unless they are quite large, but I sling them to protect them from falling to the ground and cracking. When the vines lie on the ground, I have found melons either hide under the foliage or lay out in the open and get sunscald and I don't seem to have that problem with trellised melons. Your results may vary.

If you want to, you can tip-prune the fruiting branches and that will give you a fruit set in a more concentrated area that is easier to manage.

It must be a great melon year because my vines have gone up the 6' trellises, come back down again, and are now running all over the ground. Our Julys and Augusts are usually so dry that the melon's growth is a bit less rampant. I'm enjoying all the rampant growth of many plants courtesy of Mother Nature this year, especially since Love County doesn't usually have two wet summers in a row (Of course, that won't stop me from hoping for next summer to be nice and wet as well.)

Dawn

You "southern Okie" melon growers are making me hungry. I go out every morning and touch the vine hoping the first melon will slip, but it just keeps holding on.

Carol - be patient. They well eventually let go. I keep doing the same thing. I don't know why...but I just want a surplus of sugar babies!!!

Quailhunter - I grew Ambrosia too! All the research I did told me that they perform the best here! We've pick 9 in the last 2 weeks and more are ripening! Sweet and juicy! But you've got to pick them when there's just a bit of green left or they are too ripe. We've given several away...there is a down side to eating too much! Glad you've had good luck with these too! I'm planting them again next year. My own Mother even approves!

Carol & Gamebird - be patient..I know it's hard. I almost picked ours too soon. I'm in Norman...you should only be maybe 3 weeks behind!

Randy - YEA for you! We staked down our deer-netting and it seems to have helped keep the critters out of our 'lopes. That was the only thing we've had hit by the critters. And I too loved the comment about the deer and cantelopes! Too cute! Glad you're giving that girl the exposure!

Barbara - we "trellis'd" for the first time this year. Just dig around but don't worry about those on the ground. They'll be fine but we too have "slung" the ones higher up. Our worst problem was they out-grew the sling! Small problem - we learned. They are still producing small melons so we're putting big slings on them. My "Pop" says to just watch the first curly-cue thing above the melon. When it starts to turn brown...or it will easily snap from the vine...then they're ripe. Not always a sure-fire way, but so far it works.

Lordy but I love harvesting!! Is this just great or what?

Paula

Paula,

My daughter is a natural born show-off. She gets more exposure than a flasher in a whirlwind all on her own efforts. She'll glare at me like she's mad that I'm making fun of her, but that'll turn into a proud grin at the thought of someone else getting a kick out of her shenanigans.

Barbara,
All the melons I picked this week (I'm up to six) were on the ground instead of the trellis. They ripened first. A couple had slipped the vine completely by the time I got to them. They were covered by vines and leaves for a long time. In fact, when they were still green, I couldn't see them well at all, but as they ripened they yellowed and that's how I found them in all the green.

Carol,
I live in Grove too, so you can't be too far behind me.

Randy

Randy, I think it should be any day now. I have about 3 melons that are almost ready. My one plant is growing in a container instead of the ground which may have slowed it down a bit also. The vine is huge. I am about 3 miles north.

Carol,

As Paula said, be patient. Melons ripen when they are ready and not before. One of my farmer friends here told me yesterday that he's only had one ripe one (the coyotes have had some though) and he picked another one way too early. Impatience probably causes more melons to be picked prematurely than anything else. I noticed too that a column in the local paper mentioned that the first melons from the melon farm in Thackerville were available for purchase last week...and look at how far south Thackerville is!

Paula and Quailhunter, I plant Ambrosia too and just love it. So does the garden turtle who lives in the veggie garden and he is one reason I trellis the melons. He may get a low-hanging one or two but I get the rest. I plant about a dozen melon varieties a year and many of them are good, but most of them don't produce as many melons per plant as Ambrosia. Mostly I plant heirlooms, but I also like Ambrosia (and Hale's Best Jumbo produces almost as many per plant).

If I don't trellis, by the way, pillbugs and sowbugs get the melons too. I can treat the garden every 2 or 3 weeks with Sluggo Plus and that keeps the sowbugs and pillbugs under control but doesn't entire eliminate them, so I just trellis.

Randy,

We always enjoy cute kid stories here!

Paula, When I have extras, I cut them into melon balls and freeze them. Naturally their texture is different once thawed, but in the dead of winter....one bite and you'd swear it is summertime again. I love my family, friends and neighbors, but it is a rare day that I'll give away a melon! LOL

And, speaking of my full-to-the-gills freezer, we are going shopping for another deep freeze tomorrow so I'll have room for more garden produce. My three freezers are full and will not hold one more thing.

My fall cantaloupes and muskmelons, planted in late June, are flowering and setting fruit already, and the summer ones are going strong, so I am a very happy camper.

Dawn

I planted for the fall then too, and they are indeed setting on fruit. Maybe I'm getting the hang of Oklahoma's season : )

I planted Sharlyn in May. Someone from GW sent me this seed. He grows out A LOT of melons, and this was one of his favorites. Anyway, I planted it so I could get pure seed. I planted Evans Sweet in late June or early July (forgot to write it down). Anyway, Evans Sweet is setting fruit now.

I do believe Sharlyn is one of the tastiest I've ever tried. The fellow who share the seed with me said that it had a trace of "bubblegum" in its flavor. It does, sort of.
Perhaps, sometime we'll try Ambrosia. I like to save seed, and I don't care to add on hand pollination of cantaloupe to my to do list. So, I'll limit myself to two per year.

George

Here are two pictures of Sharlyn.

I swore off growing melons; I never had very much success. But you all made me envious and convinced me to try again. Okay, which ones are you favorites? I bought a Sharyln (which I just finished this morning) and really liked it.
Bella

Obviously a number here really like Ambrosia. I've read good things about it, but haven't tried it. The other melon we grow is called Evans Sweet. It's a green fleshed cantaloupe and is also quite good.

Bella, would you describe Sharlyn's flavor as having a trace of "bubblegum" to it?

George

George, That was too much information. That melon looks good, but I hate the taste and smell of bubblegum. LOL

Hey George,
I'm with soonergrandmom, I do not like bubblegum. The one I bought at the store was sweet and better tasting than a honeydew and had almost white flesh. The photos above look like what I have been told is an Isarel melon. but then what do I know? I don't know nothing about melons, only what I like. Growing up in Southern Arizona (60+ years ago) we would get all sorts of wonderful melons that I just don't see anymore. I guess the public likes everything standarized. I will try growing melons again next summer; I am a much better gardener now than when I failed with them.
Bella

Bella,

I have so many favorite melons that it is hard to narrow down the list. Several years ago I bought the "Cook's Garden Mix" or "Cook's Custom Mix" or whatever they call it from The Cook's Garden and every variety in it produced heavily, tasted good and was disease resistant. The problem with a mix like this is that you don't know what melons you have.

Some of our favorite melons are, in addition to Ambrosia and Hale's Best Jumbo, are Charentais, Early Frame Prescott, Golden Jenny, Prescott Fond Blanc, Delice' de la Table, Collective Farm Woman, Canoe Creek Colossal, Schoon's Hardshell, Eden's Gem, Pike and Petit Gris de Rennes and Crane.

George,

That's great that you're getting fruitset on the fall plants. I still don't think I really have the seasons here mastered, but I'm getting better at it...as long as the seasons behave as expected (and I know they don't always do what we think they should). This just seems to be a great melon year because all the melon plants are behaving themselves and setting fruit. I wish they performed this well every year.

Bella,

Melons can be so confusing. The one I know as Old Israel, aka Ha'ogen, has green flesh. Since a lot of melons come from that region, I bet there's a lot of melon varieties commonly referred to as "Israel" or "Israeli".

To get the flavor you remember from your past, grow heirlooms. A lot of them are not good shipers because of their thinner rinds, but their flavor is superior. Since you grew up in Arizona, I'd check out the seeds avaiable from Native Seed/SEARCH since they have collected seed from the native American tribes of the southwest. I like Cochiti Pueblo.

When I was a kid growing up in Fort Worth, the best melons we ate all summer long came from Pecos, Texas, and the folks in town literally lined up at the local grocery store when word got out that the Pecos cantaloupe had arrived. I think Pecos, which is desert-like, has the perfect conditions to produce perfectly tasty melons with a little irrigation. (In Pecos, the likelihood that excess rain will water down the flavor is almost non-existent.)

Dawn

Actually, the melon pictured above did have nearly white flesh. But I didn't "clean out" the seed cavity down to "the white." I wanted to show the orange blush in the seed cavity. When I use Paint Shop Pro to adjust brightness, etc. It makes the whole melon seem to have that orange blush.

George,

I know the colors in photos can be 'deceiving' sometimes.

The important thing is the flavor!

And, to be honest, in a good year when the melon flavor isn't watered down and made bland by too much rain at the wrong time, we like every melon we pick and eat. Sometime in August when you have that perfect combination of heat/dry weather, I will think every melon I pick has the "best flavor ever". In a rainier year, though, if I were judging melon varieties by their flavor that year, there's a lot that wouldn't be invited back to grow in the garden again.

Since y'all have been so dry there, I bet the melons are wonderful this year.

Dawn

Hello!
For last 3 years, I had very good harvest of cantaloupes, Korean and Asian melons. They were so sweet and had wonderful flavor that I don't think you can buy them any where.... but this year, I am very sad and disappointed. For the first 3 cantaloupes and 4 Korean melons(do not grow Asian melons this year)were terrible, no taste, no flavor,and not sweet at all. Are there any one know what's wrong with my melons. I have grown them as the same way that I did for the last 3 years. Help! Help!!!!!!
I would like to post the picture too but don't know how !!!

Any advise or comments will be greatly appreciated.
Dee in Texas

Hi Dee,

I'm going to offer two guesses, and they are wild guesses since I don't know what your growing conditions have been like this year, but here goes.

1. Too much rainfall or irrigation. Is this a possibility? When we have a heavy rainfall year, my melons taste a lot less sweet and a lot more bland.

2. Incomplete fertilization. Clearly the flowers were pollinated/fertilized because you got melons. However, sometimes (and I don't know a better way to say this) they don't get as much pollen as they need....they get enough to form fruit but just barely. When you have incomplete pollination the fruit may be misshapen or have poor flavor. I don't know why.

Oh, I guess I have one more idea. Did you plant them really early compared to other years, or did cool spring weather hang on later than usual? As I'm sure you know, melons need lots of heat and sunshine to develop the maximum flavor so if they developed under abnormally cool conditions, their flavor could be affected.

Those are my best guesses. I'm assuming you grew proven varieties that you've grown before so that you know it isn't just an issue of different varieties having less flavor than others you grew in the past.

Dawn

Dawn

I have never heard of dehydrateing watermelon or cantalope, tell me more?

Also how about growing those plants in pots?

Charlie

Charlie, To dehydrate melons of all types, I remove the rind and seeds, slice them into strips or squares 1/2" thick, and dry them in the dehydrator for however long it takes. For most melons, it takes about 20 hours but sometimes more and sometimes less. I start them at 140 degrees to get them started and then reduce it to 120 after a couple of hours. You dry them until they are sort of leathery and pliable and have no sticky spots left. The dehydration process concentrates the sugar which makes the resulting dehydrated melons taste as sweet as candy.

Because it is really hard to get melons as dehydrated as they need to be to avoid molding, I store them in ziplock bags in the deep freeze after they've been dehydrated. If kept in the freezer, they'll last a long time.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn, Thats very interesting, will have to save this advice.

Charlie

hi guys, my family watermelon plant has lots of buds and not many fruits. Does picking off some flowers help make more fruits?

Tell us more about your melons. We need more info about your specific plants before we can give an appropriate answer. When were they planted? From seed or transplants? What variety or varieties? Are you seeing both male and female flowers? How many melons have set per plant so far? Are the plants a good, healthy green color?

I dont know what type of melons they are but we planted them around may 15 from seed. There are male and female flowers and we have 3 melons growing at this point on i think 3 plants. The leaves are a good healthy color though.

All the various descriptions of the melons makes me hope mine produce something...anything. I planted Lil' Sweetie (trellised) around mid-May and Bush Sugar Baby (in ground) around mid-June but so far the 'lopes just have blossoms - no fruit and the watermelon are just getting to the blossom stage. *sigh* The cantelopes have received slightly less sun than the watermelons so we'll see what happens.

Paula, you've made Ambrosia sound so delicious, be prepared to be hit up for seeds this fall. It sounds wonderful. Glad you've got a good amount making it to the dinner table, breakfast table, ice cream maker....etc, etc. Yum-o-la.

Dawn, a fourth freezer?!? OMG girlfriend, I think you've crossed over to a whole other stratosphere. I believe I agree with an earlier comment that you ARE a machine. I get exhausted just reading about all the hundreds of jars you've canned and fresh veggies you've frozen or dehydrated or whatever..... whew! I'm gonna go lay down now just thinking about it! lol Now if you can just figure out how to make your own version of Gatorade, you'll never have to go to the grocery store again! I bow at your feet.

Hello, everyone! I planted cantaloupe for the first time this year. I planted Organic Sugar Melon Classic and later on planted Organic Ambrosia. I was shocked to read all the raves on here about Ambrosia, because my ambrosia has turned out very few, tiny, tasteless fruit. The Sugar Melon Classic, on the other hand, has produced large, juicy, luscious, plentiful fruits that are oh-so-sweet. Could someone advise me how to save the seeds from these fabulouus plants? I allowed the first batch to dry for about a week then packaged them up for next year. I am a little concerned that I packaged them too soon. Maybe the seeds need to lay out in the air for weeks before being dry enough to package and save. Will the seeds rot or get moldy? Any tips would be greatly appreciated as these seeds are definite keepers!

Mimi,

Well, sanity prevailed and we didn't get that fourth freezer. All my freezers are full now, though, so I can't freeze much more beyond maybe a couple more gallon bags of jalapeno peppers. I don't know how this happened. It was only a good year and not a great one, and I thought only one freezer would be fully filled, but somehow, they all are. I will confess I am completely and totally exhausted and burnt out and at the point I don't want to step foot in the garden again this month nor am I really in a food preservation mood either. A great sweet potato harvest awaits though, and I am excited about that.

Kassie,

Ambrosia is a hybrid melon so seeds saved from it will not necessarily give you the same melons you had this year.

While you can save seed from open-pollinated, stable varieties and they will (assuming they were not cross-pollinated) give you the same variety, hybrids by their nature don't work that way. Hybrids are created by crossing two (or more) parent plants to get fruit that produce hybrid seed for planting purposes. So, to get new seed for planting purposes, you have to cross those two (or more) parent plants each time to produce F-1 (first filia, or first generation) seed. Plants grown from that F-1 seed will produce seed, but it won't be F-1. It will be F-2 and may be similar to the F-1 or may not resemble it at all. So, if you save seeds from an F-1 plant, you might get great plants and fruit the next year and you might get crap and there is no way to tell in advance.

I don't know if the melon you know as Sugar Melon Classic is a hybrid, but there is a melon called Classic and it is a bybrid as well so likely would not come true from seed.

When you save any seed, you dry them down to very, very low moisture levels. You need to dry them long enough that you can break a seed in half between your fingers. If the seed only bends and doesn't break, it usually isn't quite dry enough.

Oh, and if you had Ambrosia and it was not incredible, you either didn't have the true F-1 Ambrosia melon or had something go terribly wrong because it is one great melon and most people do not get the results from Ambrosia that you had.

Dawn