Charlie,

They are in the ground and are small but fine. I have them in a pretty crowded area, but they're making melons so that's all that matters.

This year I planted a lot more cool-season crops than I normally do, and more of them, and that ate up almost all my melon and winter squash space, so the ones I have are late. Usually I'm harvesting by now. I also have some volunteer melons that popped up in one of the bush beans and I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of muskmelons they are.

My garden this year is heavy on beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes and okra, and light on melons and winter squash, including pumpkins. I did plant more okra and purplehull pinkeye peas when the corn was done, but wish I had planted more melons at that time too. Every year there is something I wish I'd planted more of, and this year it is melons.

How are your melons doing?

Dawn

Dawn, forgive this wee little interception, but when you refer to "muskmelons", what does that term mean?

Susan

Lol, Susan! It's a very common question, so no worries! There is a difference between actual "cantelope" and "muskmelons", although it's difficult to tell for most. Muskmelons are what grow best here, and I personnally believe that most grocery stores and even veggie stands pass them off as cantelope. Dawn will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the main difference is their appearance (ok, maybe a bit of taste too). Cantelope are ribbed, kinda like pumpkins. Muskmelons are not. They both have the same "webbing" in the skin, but one is more pronounced...and I don't remember which. I grown Ambrosia, which is often mistaken for an American Cantelope. Doesn't matter to me because I grow it for the flavor. I'm not sure if it's a "cantelope" or a "muskmelon", but it's so tasty!

Paula (who intercepted and answered for Dawn!)

Keep me posted Dawn on the Melons for my info for help next year. I did not have space for melons this year. But I am very interested in how the Black Tail Mountains make.

Charlie

Susan,

To the rest of the world, the netted melons we call cantaloupes in this country are muskmelons. The rest of the world calls them muskmelons but we incorrectly call them cantaloupes. Actual cantaloupes aren't grown by a lot of people here in the USA. Most years I grow both.

Here's a brief intro to the melon family tree.

All melons are Cucurbitaceae and are either Cucumis melo or Citrullus lanatus.

Cucumis melo includes melons classified as:

Cantalupensis--(cantaloupes) and examples are Early Frame Prescott, Prescott Fond Blanc, Charentais, Ha'ogen and Petit Gris de Rennes. These are the true cantaloupes and are usually round, sutured, and have fairly prominent ribs. Netting, if any, is very sporadic. Most of them have salmon-orange flesh and they do not slip from the vine when ripe. Most of the ones I know of are originally from Europe.

Reticulatus--(Muskmelons and Persian Melons). This group includes most melons erroneously referred to as cantaloupes in this country, like Jenny Lind, Emerald Gem, Schoon's Hard Shell, Cochiti Pueblo and Old Time Tennesee. These are usually netted to some degree. Most have some ribbing or suturing. Many are round but a few are quite oblong. Most of these will form an abscission layer and slip from the vine when ripe. Many have salmon-orange flesh but some are green and some have almost white flesh.

Momordica--like Cob Melon are Asian melons (from India, I believe) and are seldom seen in the typical American garden. They are not sweet and split open easily as they ripen.

Dudaim--This is a group of fragrant melons that are of poor eating quality. The only one of this group I've ever grown is Queen Anne's Pocket Melon which has a delightful aroma that will scent the whole yard and attract tons of wildlife but which isn't tasty at all. In olden times, ladies carried these in their pockets as a sort of walking air freshener.

Flexosus--These are the ones we call Armenian Cucumbers or Snake Melons. These grow long and narrow. If you grow them on some sort of trellis, the melons hang down and grown straight. If you grow them on the ground, they curl and twist. In both flavor and texture, these are almost more cucumber-like than melon-like, only they don't have spines. Their flesh is not as watery as cucumber flesh, so they're a bit crunchier.

Inodorus--These are the wonderfully flavored but not very aromatic melons that we often refer to as Winter Melons because they ripen late and have a long shelf life. This group includes Honeydews (probably their most famous member), but also Cranes, Crenshaws and Casabas. Some of the varieties of melons which are members of this group include Collective Farm Woman (one of my personal all-time favorite melons), Amarillo d'or, Bidwell Casaba, Sweet Freckles, Piel de Sapo (aka Frogskin melon) and Orange-Fleshed Honeydew. They have very hard rinds which helps them keep for a longer period of time than melons with softer rinds.

Conomon--These are Asian melons and they are not sweet, but instead are crisp and sort of crunchy. They are pretty bland and if their flavor can be described at all (almost no flavor to speak of), it is bitter. In Japan, they are pickled. One of the sweeter ones (and it isn't that sweet compared to the melons we grow and eat here in the USA) is Sakata's Sweet.

The melons classified a Citrullus lanatus are what we know as watermelons, and include Blacktail Mountain, Carolina Cross, Sugar Lump, Sugar Baby, Ali Baba, Chris Cross, Black Diamond, Georgia Rattlesnake and Yellow Doll. This group also includes Citron Melon which is grown strictly for processing as it has to be boiled in sugar to make it edible. Eaten raw, it is rock-hard and poorly flavored.

That is much more than you asked, Susan, but I figured if I was going to describe Cantaloupes and Muskmelons, I might as well throw in the other members of the family.

When I first had space to grow lots of melons, I experimented and grew up to 20 kinds per year, but now I just grow a few kinds each year. It is hard for just the two of us to keep up with the melon harvest so I try not to grow too many. I don't like them as much preserved as fresh, so a surplus is a headache to deal with. Of course, as I was typing this I kept thinking "ooh, I need to grow this one (and that one and that other one too) next year".

Dawn

Wow, thanks for the introduction to cucurbits, Dawn! Had no clue that what I was eating was actually not a canteloupe! I don't have the space to grow them, but like being educated about the food I eat.

My little PumpKmon is growing gangbusters and flowering like crazy, altho I noticed most of the blooms continue to fall off the plant. If I only get a couple, that's fine. Where it is growing is a pretty good spot - how insightful of this little squash/pumpkin! At the edge of my garden in the front, along the sidewalk edge, I have wooden decking running the length of the front garden bed, about 3' or more wide, with a "step" down to the sidewalk. The melon is growing so that the expanding plant lies on the wooden decking, so it is held off the bare ground, which I understand is good. Sure hope I get some fruit from this plant.

Susan

Paula,

Hooray! You knew the difference between cantaloupes and muskmelons. You get a gold star. Ambrosia is a muskmelon, and one of the finest in flavor, at least to my taste buds.

Susan,

Check the flowers and see if you are getting all male flowers so far, or if you have both male and female. All members of the winter squash family, which includes pumpkins, usually put out a lot of male flowers first followed by a mix of male and female flowers. It is a genetic thing that happens to ensure that when the female is 'ready', there will be lots of males around to supply pollen and ensure fertilization ocurs. Thus, early in the bloom cycle, you may have only males who have no one with whom to share their pollen.

If you have both male and female flowers, you can do the pollination yourself by removing the male flower and 'dabbing' the female flower's center with the center of the male flower. If you've never noticed the difference between male and female flowers on squash plants, the male flower has a long, straight stem that is uniform in width. Females have an immature ovary at the base of the flower and it is this immature ovary, which will somewhat resemble a tiny squash, that will develop into your pumpkin or winter squash after it is pollinated.

If no female flowers have appeared yet, just check the plant for them daily. Sometimes in hot weather, you'll get a whole lot of male flowers before the female flower appears. New flowers open daily and the best time to hand-pollinate is in the morning.

If you're seeing bees on the flowers, you shouldn't have to hand-pollinate because the bees ought to be doing it for you.

Somewhere in a couple of different threads this summer you will find George's detailed instructions for hand-pollinating squash which go much more into detail than my simple description telling you to 'dab the female flower's center with the male flower's center'.

Dawn

Dawn

How many melons per vine do you have on your Black Tail Mountains?

Charlie

Charlie,

I haven't counted, but there's usually 2 to 4 on each plant at one time, sometimes more in a good year when I get the plants in the ground early in May and have good rainfall, mild temperatures and good growth. I only plant them in raised beds with heavily amended clay. In sandy soil they may not produce as many per plant if it drains too well, and when I've planted them in unamended or poorly amended heavy clay, I only got 2 per plant. So, I think soil fertility and texture has a very definite effect on production. They are not large vines, so there's never going to be a huge harvest per plant. I get about the same number of fruit per plant with them that I get with regular Sugar Baby. Bush Sugar Baby has smaller vines but only produces 2 fruit per plant most years, but since you could get more plants into an area, you might get more watermelons per square foot with Bush Sugar Baby than with Sugar Baby or Blacktail Mountain.

In my best Blacktail Mountain year, which was the very rainy 2004, I got 6 to 8 fruit per plant. Luckily for me, most of the rainfall stopped in July, so the melons did not have whiteheart or splitting which can happen in years when it is very wet while the melons are maturing.

Dawn

Susan, George's explanation is great and he uses squash pictures so they are large enough so everyone can understand. I have it on my computer and he says we are welcome to share it as long as we give him credit and don't make changes. If you want the file, just send me your email address through my GardenWeb and I will send it to you. I don't know why I didn't keep your address.

Dawn

Just trying to get an idea, as I am going to try them in pots next year.

Charlie

Charlie,

I am trying a Crenshaw melon and one of the mini-watermelon varieties in pots this year as an experiment. The Crenshaw is doing fairly well, but the watermelon is starting to struggle, although it has a lot of fruit on it. My pots are probably 30 gallon size and I used MiracleGro potting soil and well-rotted compost. I'm not sure (and wasn't when I started) the pot would handle the melons' nutritional needs. But I do think melons would do well in a container the size of a small water tank. Just FYI and the jury is still out.
Marcy

Thanks Marcy,

Keep me posted on how that turns out, result wise on the watermelon. Are you feeding regularly?

Charlie

Yes, I am. The foliar feeding with MG is keeping the vines healthy and green, and I scratch in bone meal and organic slow release fertilizer and topdress with more compost ever so often. My other melons are going gangbusters, making the potted ones look like the runts of the litter and I know this weather hasn't helped any. I just can't keep enough water on them in this weather which makes me wonder what the quality of the melon is going to be. It's more work than I anticipated to keep them going. I left three vines in the pot and have eight melons (I think) at last count. The Crenshaw only has two fruit on it but much lusher vines.

Marcy