I highly recommend growing mouse melons. They climb very readily and have tendrils. My single plant is extremely vigorous, and is, to some extent all through my 6'x10' raised garden bed, and at least 6' up a trellis. Pretty sure it would be taking over the lawn if it was allowed. It is in a sense small and delicate, the vines are lightweight and delicate, and I don't think it would be too hard to keep it smaller/ more under control than I have. I think you could grow them on a low trellis, though a taller one probably makes better use of space and makes harvesting a little easier. My mouse melon sprawls in all directions and is very happy to grow on the ground as well as up the trellis and over other plants... They compete very effectively with other plants! I direct seeded my mouse melon in early October (Spring here), begun harvesting mid January. The harvest has been increasing exponentially ever since. It is a difficult to keep up. I have pickled some, and given plenty away. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with what happens to a Mouse melon plant in a mild frostless winter? Three weeks till winter here, and it keeps growing. I wonder will it die back? Stop fruiting at some minimum temperature?

The tag shows it is from Walters in Michigan. They just got MM into mass production last year for sale this year. These were put into small paper "Elle" plugs last year, then transferred into the larger plugs and put into dormancy. They were shipped as the bigger plugs this spring. BTW - If you take it out of the pot, there's a good chance you can actually identify one or both of the paper plugs. Walters has gotten pretty good on the plugs... better all the time... I got Dancing Queen and Satisfaction and June that were all large single eyes with good root structure. But the twenty MM I got like this one were dormant when shipped this spring. As they came out of dormancy, I'd say 50% of them turned into nice MM with 6 or more leaves. A couple of mine have taken about 7 weeks to come out of dormancy and have just sent up one odd eye. And a number of them are oddly colored... streaky or almost entirely yellow - or at least the yellow that turns lighter that makes up the margin of a regular MM. so... this year's batch has a bunch of oddballs. I'm betting Carol will still get some leaves this year, though I'm not willing to guess they will look true to type. I'll be keeping the oddest ones for myself - except one almost all yellow one a forum member just picked up on his lunch hour. It had just a couple of thin bluish streaks. I made him promise to give me the first division if he ends up with Golden Mouse Ears or some spectacular oddity. To be honest - the streaked ones are really attractive, so I'm not complaining too much... but I'll take a financial bath on the poorly emerging ones - unless Carol wants to buy some companions for hers! I haven't spoken to Walters about this yet, so I don't know what kind of reports they are getting from bigger operations...

Great thread, timely for me as I just finished my "mouse trap" raised mini garden yesterday except for filling it with soil. Now to start hunting down plants! I have one small Blue Mouse Ears to go in there for a starter. So far I've found a list of 11 "mice" plus some relatives. Besides BME, there are BME Supreme Cat and Mouse Green Mouse Ears Dancing Mouse Mighty Mouse Mouse Trap Royal Mouse Ears Snow Mouse Frosted Mouse Ears Mouse Tracks Funny Mouse and cousins One Iota, Pure Heart, Itty Bitty and Mighty Moe. Does.anyone have them all? It's going to be a fun treasure hunt searching for them. By the time I find some, I'll have the soil ready! Sandy

Hi There Paula, Yours is not the only Mighty Mouse doing "the change". Mine has for 2 years now. I look at it like eventually I'll have my own Giantland Sunny Mouse Ears, if I just hold on a little longer. So, it doesn't bug me at all. I'm sure experts will log on and tell you some REAL science!! All I can say is that hostas regularly sport and throw variations. So I've read on here.... Some folks say a couple of leaves isn't conclusive of anything. Some might say if it's an entire eye of the hosta going to gold, then you could separate it off (and replant if desired) so it may not cause the whole plant to go wonky. Again, I'm no Hosta Whiz, but I thought I'd give you my 2-cents. Most of which I've learned on here. See what other folks say. I'll post a pict of mine if I can figure out how to! Good luck! --Windchime