would you trade some seeds?

Sorry, been away! Mine did not slip, hence the splits, I think. And I would trade seeds, but the melons are long gone, and I didn't save any. I have not yet progressed to the seed-saving point--too much to learn about actual gardening. But DAMN, they were good eating. The seeds are definitely worth buying.

Wait, you mean they split because maybe they were overripe and not because of overwatering? I need to do some research and figure out how to tell when these things are ripe. If these melons don't slip, so folks don't know when to harvest them, it makes a lot of sense that they are more prone to splitting, because people are more prone to letting them get overripe.

I don't know that they were overripe. I've just read that they have a reputation for splitting. The posts I've read didn't explain why. But I checked them often, and the leaf nearest them never dried out, and they were firmly attached to the vines, so I assumed they weren't ripe. Also, the outside rind never got soft--I couldn't get a fingernail mark in them. Then one morning I go out, smell a decaying melon, and lo and behold.

I don't know much about melons, have only grown them twice, and I have to study so much about so many fruits and veggies that I never learned much about cantaloupes. All I can tell you is that they have a rep for splitting, and I don't care--they were intensely flavorful and fragrant, and it's worth losing a few if I can savor them again.

What I'm reading about Savor/Chanterais ripeness is -- cracks at the blossom end, yellowing of the ribs, dried tendrils, and a strong aroma.

In fact, this is a popular question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSJLd_tlbxE

A melon that doesn't slip. Geez! I think I'm ready to try these out.

Let me add that with regard to watering, my understanding is that overwatering can induce cracks, and it can also make the melons less sweet, as the melon juices get diluted. People seem to say that a good strategy is to withhold water a week before harvest for maximally sweet melons. I frankly don't understand that, as my melon vines are going to have lots of melons on them of all different sizes, and if I start withholding water to sweeten the big ones, it isn't helping the small ones. Anyone understand that strategy?

Interesting thin about the Savors--they were all different sizes as you can see in my photo. But despite their variety of sizes, all were ripe--the bigger ones more aromatic, the flesh a tad softer, but even the smaller ones were intensely flavorful and pleasant-smelling. Mine never turned the shad of yellow in the video before they split, though.

OK, I've put in six Savor/Charentais adjacent to a dozen of my regular (Sierra Gold) canteloupes. (No, I won't be collecting seeds.) Very much looking forward to trying the former for the first time. I've had a lot of luck with the latter and have never had any trouble with them splitting, which I understand is more prevalent in the Charentais. Crossing my fingers. The plants are growing rapidly, but some differences are already clear. The Charentais are a bit slower. Planted at exactly the same time, and while everyone is healthy and thriving, the Charentais are about half the size. The Sierra Gold has flowers (all male right now) all over them, but the Charentais have yet to flower.

Anyone else growing Savor/Charentais?

Please forgive me for jumping in. I've never grown a cantalope before. What does slip mean?

Slip means "fall off the vine". If you pick a regular canteloupe before it is ready to fall off the vine, it isn't ripe. Those who steal canteloupes with a knife are disappointed in them. I go out every other day and give each big one a shake. If it comes off, it goes inside with me.

Of course, what's being said here is that Charentais are ripe before they slip.

For those of you who logged in in the last hour note that I've finally decided to spell them right. It's fixed now, at least for my recent posts.

Thanks, Dan! I plan to start some green fleshed cantaloupes soon. I never would have known.

I am! I'm growing Savor, Prescott Fond Blanc, D'Algiers and Vert Grimpant, for the first time. I'm west of Phoenix Arizona and its been quite warm here. I started my plants direct seeded (sown on Feb 17th) and amended the soil with about 20 % sand to try to simulate conditions in the part of France where they grow these melons. It took a little while, probably about a month after the seedlings emerged for the plants to take off. They really started growing when the temps hit the 80s.

Right now, the vines are about a yard long and they are covered with male blossoms with a couple of small female blossoms not quite open yet. The Savor and the Prescott Fond Blanc are growing the fastest with the Vert Grimpant the slowest.

The soil they are growing in drains fairly quickly so I've been watering every day and they get dappled shade after noon. We're having some sort of freaky hot weather right now, it's supposed to get in the mid 90s this week.

That's great, Marie. I look forward to comparing notes with you on this. Sounds like you're a few weeks ahead of me. We have yet to really hit the 80s hard. We've touched it. But it won't be long. With regard to watering, my strategy with regular canteloupes has been to wait until they droop before watering. I think that's partly why I've never had any problem with splitting, because I'm not overwatering. I'm hoping that strategy pays off with the Savor/Charentais, which is alleged to be a serious splitter.

Well, all the melons are doing well. Savor is the most vigorous so far. It managed to grow another 2 feet this past week in spite of the weather. We had some freak heat wave, got up in the high 90s, almost 100, and the humidity was at 5% to 7%. All melons have had dozens of male flowers on them. I saw what looks like 3 female flowers on Savor yesterday, so will be watching! Need to give them a little more fertilizer.....I have to watch these plants closely. The soil is well draining but with the heat and low humidity I do have to water just about every day and don't want the plants to suffer if nutrients leach out of the soil because of the frequent watering. I live in a challenging growing area.......

Nice. Mine are racing along as well. Still a bit smaller than my regular
canteloupes (Sierra Gold), but all are getting so big the distinction
is no longer obvious. The vines on each Savor/Charentais are at least a
year long. Maybe 4 feet for the others. Lots of male flowers. Haven't
seen a female one on either the Charentais or the Sierra Gold. We had
two inches of rain last week, so the soil is now thoroughly moist. I was
hoping the rain would hold off until the roots got deep, and I think
that happened. Our temps are in the 80/60 range, and I've really only
watered once since they were put in the ground a month ago. I have an
8x10 foot bed, and the issue now is directing the vines to fill it
optimally.

Keep an eye out. Last summer I grew these and squash bugs and cucumber beetles got on them hard. Before I knew what was happening bacterial wilt took the plants out the rest of the way. This didn't happen overnight, but it sure seemed that way at the time. I'd never before seen a planting of anything go down so completely and so rapidly. Hope you both avoid similar!

That's terrible Bob, how disappointing!!! I am curious about something though.....I bought the Savor seeds from Johnnys and recently (because they had a really good sale) I bought some Charantais seeds from Baker Creek. The pictures in both seed catalogs look exactly the same, including the view of the cut open melons. The seeds from both are the same shape and size, but the Charantais seeds are a little more tan in color. So, my question is....is Charantais a general purpose, descriptive group *name* for similar melons grown in that region of France, or are the melons a completely different kind? Like I said, the pictures and descriptions are exactly the same but the Savor is also called Charantais.

PS I'm hoping this 60 mph wind we've had all day helped pollinate the female flowers, lol.

I ordered mine from SSE, and they are called Charantais there (now that I go back and look, it seems the price of those seeds has more than doubled since I got them in January -- seasonal pricing, I guess!) I was led to believe that the names Savor and Charantais were synonymous.

Maybe I can count myself lucky, but I've never seen a squash bug or cucumber beetle.

60mph winds? Geez. Not sure where you are, Marie, but maybe your melons could pollinate mine!

They are both cantaloupe. Savor is a hybrid. It is Charantais "like" cantaloupe. Charantais is a variety.

Thank you. That's helpful. So Charantais are in principle OP, and Savor are not. I'm growing my Charantais right next to a bunch of Sierra Gold, so I sure won't be saving seeds, but it's good to know.

You can hand pollinate if you care about saving seeds since they can cross. BTW - I think Sierra Gold is a muskmelon and not a cantaloupes. Same species. But...different.

It's my understanding that all cantaloupes are muskmelons. There are many muskmelons that aren't cantaloupes. From the Illinois extension: “The term cantaloupe refers to two varieties of muskmelon. What we typically call a cantaloupe is Cucumis melo reticulatus, also called the North American cantaloupe. The variety name reticulatus refers to the net-like appearance of the skin, also called reticulated. The other variety, European cantaloupe, Cucumis melo cantalupensis, has ribbed light green skin and looks nothing like what we commonly call cantaloupe.
While both of these cantaloupe varieties are muskmelons, not all muskmelons are cantaloupes. The name muskmelon comes from the sweet fragrance of the ripe fruit. The term musk comes from a Persian word for perfume, and melon is a French word derived from the Latin melopepo, which means “apple-shaped melon”. There are many different types of muskmelons, with a wide variety of shapes, sizes, flesh color and flavor.
Muskmelons, including cantaloupe are native to Persia, which is present-day Iran. The oldest pictoral record of muskmelon appears to be in an Egyptian illustration dating back to 2400 B.C. Historical records give indications that the Greeks grew muskmelon back in 300 B.C. Cultivation of muskmelon spread slowly westward, and by the late 15th century, Christopher Columbus carried muskmelon seeds with him on one of his voyages to the New World.”

Original poster here. I'm growing Savor again this year. In my zone, I direct-seed in May--corn and melons planted the same day. Cannot wait.

Sorry for getting off topic OP. How late in May will you wait to direct seed?

Well the seed packet (from a major seed company, I don't remember which) identified my Sierra Gold as simply a cantaloupe. They sure look like cantaloupes!

ilovesucumbers -- My apologies for the off topic comments.

Thank you for all the information Bob. I really appreciate all of the information and ideas that the people on this forum share. It's all a learning experience about growing and experimenting with plants.

ReignO Don't worry about coming off the topic a bit. We are all here to share ideas and opinions. I have learned a lot. Keep the ideas coming!

Dan in the Dirt I live northwest of Phoenix Arizona. It's supposed to be windy all week, you will probably be getting it in a day or two as it moves east from here.

I noticed the differences in the pictures of the melons, the heavily netted North American type and the smoother skinned Charantais types. I remember reading that many melons, cucumbers and eggplants originated in or around the middle east. Good to know you can save seed if you hand pollinate plants if they are grown close together....The packet of Charantais seeds I just received from Baker Creek has a lot of seeds in it, if anyone would like a few to try. My growing season winds up in mid June so its too late for me to plant any for a while. Mid June the temps spike, last year we had an entire week of 119 degree heat. Even my corn fried to the ground. That's why I got an earlier start this year.

So you can't keep melons alive in high heat? It never really ever gets much over 105F or so here, but when it does, I just wait until they wilt a bit, and I water. They're troopers, and they perk right back up. But I wonder if the combination of very high temps and low humidity is a killer. In my view, melons have been among the most heat-resistant things I grow, in both foliage health and fruit production.

No worries about off-topic stuff. I'm learning by reading! My original post was just sheer delight that they turned out so well. Their fragrance...intoxicating. The flavor...like nothing I've ever had. I've just never had a melon so good. :)

Ilovecucumbers: I am very excited about these melons and really hope I get some!!! My sons always used to cut melons in half, scoop the seeds out and fill the center with vanilla ice cream! I also had a huge 23 pound black cat that loved eating cantaloupe. If we turned our backs for an instant he was up on the table munching away at them!

Daninthedirt: The intense high dry heat will make plants turn brown and crispy. The leaves and stems become so dry that they are very brittle and fall apart. The heat kind of dry cooks them. I came home one day and my cactus that were in pots under the patio, had turned black and were drooped over the sides of the pots. But, today, I noticed some female flowers that look a little bigger and green, so I am keeping my fingers crossed......I have grown Hales Jumbo cantaloupe before but it was a long time ago. The house I had then had a different set up, the garden was covered with 50/50 shade cloth on a tall frame and there were built in sprinklers and drip systems.

Well my Sierra Gold and Charantais have totally filled my 8x10' bed with foliage, with zillions of flowers. My Sierra Gold already has about ten golfball sized melons and a lot of smaller ones, but my Charantais, as far as I can tell, doesn't have a single one. I may have to manually pollinate those. Sigh. The behavior of these plants is quite different. The growth of both is rip-roaring, and one challenge is keeping the plants of the two varieties at least slightly separated so I know whose melon is whose.

OK, I located a couple of marble-sized Chantarais melons. But hand pollination may still be in the cards for those.

I hand pollinate Chantarais. But that is because I want every possible melon. You're growing them as one big melon bed?

I have 2 kinds of Charantais melons. The Savor has several melons on it that I can see off hand, one is the size of a tennis ball, the others a bit smaller, but growing fast. The other, Vert Grimpant, has been dropping the small fruit, probably not well pollinated. All the melon varieties have hundreds of flowers on them, including female flowers and growing all over the place. They have long since escaped the garden bed, but as long as the roots are in the good soil, let the vines go where they will!! I will take a better look around tomorrow. Long days at work, dark when I get home and no day off in a week now, so I will check out whats going on tomorrow morning. Probably more melons that I haven't seen, hiding under the leaves. The melons seem to really like the heat so far and are really taking off. Been between the 70s and the 90s here, with a few cooler days and some rain. I notice that the Savor are kind of fuzzy when they are just starting out but become more smooth skinned as they grow bigger, and get a little lighter green in color. I haven't hand pollinated anything, but will probably try tomorrow with the Vert Grimpant, which I've heard is especially tricky to grow. You're a couple weeks behind me Dan, but I think you should be getting some melons soon. I think I had about 3 weeks of male flowers before the females started, and the first week of females didn't do anything, then suddenly there were melons. And they grow fast. Mine went from an inch long to tennis ball size in about 10 days.

Every time I look, I find more melons!! WooHoo!! My Prescott Fond Blanc, which is more of a honeydew type rather than cantaloupe, has some small melons on it, too. They are light green/dark green striped. Very pretty to look at. One of my Savor melons is about the size of the melon in the middle of the picture at the top of this page.

Just not a lot of female flowers on my Charantais. My bed is 2/3 Sierra Gold and 1/3 Charantais. At this rate, that larger section is going to be paved with melons. It is pretty astonishing how fast melons increase in size.

Pictures from summer 2014.

• My first Charantais Savor melon was just picked. The scent is heavenly!

• Stats: Direct seeded on February 17th, emergence on Feb 24 thru Feb 28th. Lots of soil amendments including 20% sand. Temps hot- 113 to 117 this week with 7 to 9% humidity. High desert northwest of Phoenix Arizona elevation 1150 feet. Early morning sun for 4 to 5 hours, then dappled shade, with additional shade cover this week due to extreme heat wave.

• No splitting of any melons, including the other varieties that were planted. All melon varieties are fruiting now. Savor is standing up well to the high temperatures , some wilting will occur if not watered twice a day in this climate. Other than that, haven't had any problems at all growing this melon, no pest attacks, zillions of flowers, both male and female, good vine growth for a small variety plant. Will definately grow this again.

  

Somewhat ahead of me. My Chantarais are just softball size. My Sierra Gold is within a week of harvest, however. They were all planted and transplanted at the same time, so the latter are definitely faster. I have an 8x8 foot bed, and between the two melons, I must have twenty larger than baseballs. My neighbors are going to be happy this summer. Of course, my Chantarais will be coming in about the time I'm getting sick of cantaloupe. No splitting in any yet, and we've had a lot of rain. Temps here have stayed below 90F in the last few weeks, and before that it was a somewhat cool spring. Humidity is almost always high, especially in the last few weeks. To the extent the sun is out (which it hasn't been much in the last few weeks), this bed gets about 7 hours of it.

I'm wary of splitting in the Chantarais, because I've heard it to be a problem. Never had a single Sierra Gold split in the few years I've been growing them.

Let me know how your Chantarais tastes. One of these days, I need to get a sugar meter/refractometer.

They taste as good as they smell!!! Very fine textured and sweet, but not overly sweet. Leave a bit of sweet after taste in your mouth. Nice and juicy too. I picked mine when they turned a very light sage green color/turning gold, and the small leaf on the vine turned brown yesterday. I'm really glad I have more to look forward to picking and eating. I'll bring some to my dads house and we'll get a good French opinion on them, but I'm sure he would give them 5 stars!

Light sage green turning gold and browning leaves. I'll have to remember that. How big are they when ripe? I need to know when to start watching closely.

They are small melons, so a bit bigger than baseball size, about 3 to 3 1/2 inches diameter. That's a quarter on the bench next to my melon in the picture. The rinds are very thin (about 3/16 inch), and smooth skinned. Seed cavities are relatively small. I've never grown these before and was surprised at the weight compared to the size. Hefty little things, but good!

Theres a blog Themelonguy that lives in Australia that grows all kinds of melons and in one of his posts he remarked that he was surprised at how long Savor took to ripen being such a small melon. I think mine took 4 to 5 weeks after they fertilized and started growing before I could pick one.

Whoa, that's tiny. I've got ones at least that big! I gotta start watching closely. I was initially figuring that they were going to get about as large as regular cantaloupes. If that were the case, I'd have a month or more to wait. You know, you see pictures of these things from proud gardeners, and there is no scale attached to them. (Though the smart gardeners here did, in fact, both put quarters next to their ripe fruit. I appreciate you pointing that out.)

Thank you!

Sorry Dan in the Dirt! That's one melon that won't be Texas sized! Heehee.

OK, I *finally* got to taste my first Charantais. It was big, but starting to crack at the end. I've got about eight that are pretty much full-sized, and none of the others have started to crack. Keeping my fingers crossed. The flavor is truly awesome, even for one that evidently might not have been fully ripe. Like regular cantaloupe with sugar sprinkled on top. The sweet aftertaste lasts for a while in your mouth, and I suspect some may find that disconcerting. And yes, they look nothing like regular cantaloupes on the outside, but look exactly like regular cantaloupe on the inside.

This one must have been almost ripe. Flesh was just slightly firmer than a fully ripe cantaloupe. But it was mostly green on the outside. Of course, wasn't even close to slipping. Just starting to get a little beige at one end. I can tell that assessing ripeness of these may be a bit of a challenge.

I'm delighted to have these start coming in, because we had a very wet few weeks, and I've lost half the Santa Fe crop to bugs and rotting. The Charantais have been much more durable. The lack of netting may make them so.

I should add that mine are smaller than a regular cantaloupe, but still pretty big. Larger than a softball. Maybe five or six inches in diameter.

They're a treat, that's for sure! My family and everyone at work loved them.

I agree, they seem to be a hardy plant. In my area of the country, plants and fruit tend to be smaller and not quite as lush, probably due to the extreme temperatures, low humidity and lack of rain. I believe natural rain contains a lot of nitrogen and trace minerals that are missing in tap water. On the other hand, because the ground drains so quickly, it may have contributed to the lack of splitting in my fruits. I did not diminish watering as my fruits were ripening and the flavor was outstanding, nothing tended towards blandness.

I had to pick everything that I could, the temps are to be in the 120F range through Monday or longer. Couple weeks ago, it got up to 118 and my lettuce, tomatoes, couple pepper plants and half my carrots got cooked!! I was able to successfully grow some Vert Grimpant which I heard were especially tricky to grow, also some beautiful Kajari melons, which are cooling off in the fridge right now.

I'm going to start some more plants indoors here, in a couple of months and see how they do for a fall crop. In the meantime, I will enjoy reading about everyone else's successes!

OK, so let me get this straight. I've had another two Charantais melons crack on the blossom end. It starts as just a little opening, and then gets larger day by day. Like a flower opening. I pick them, cut off the small cracked end, and I have 90% of an essentially ripe melon. Is that the characteristic "cracking" that Charantais seem to be known for? If so, it's a great way to know when to pick them! I was thinking that "cracking" might be something longitudinal, between the blossom end and the stem. I've seen that in regular cantaloupes. But this is different.

Ilovecucumbers,

Is there a possibility that I could trade for some of your seeds? I see you've been growing them for a couple of years now. I've got some Armenian cucumber seeds that I could trade you... or even my prized Chocolate Daisy seeds. Interested?