Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting. Mulching the planting site with black plastic will serve multiple purposes: it will warm the soil ahead of planting, hinder weed growth, and keep developing fruits clean. How to Plant Cantaloupes Plant seeds 1 inch deep, 18 inches apart, in hills or hilled rows about 3 feet apart. If you have limited space, vines can be trained up a support, such as a trellis.
How to Grow Cantaloupes If a soil test indicates that nutrients are lacking, fertilize with a standard liquid fertilizer when vines start growing and spreading. Later on, avoid nitrogen-heavy fertilizers, as too much nitrogen can result in lots of foliage and less fruit. Row covers are a good way to keep pests like squash bugs and vine borers at bay.
Watering is key. While the plants are growing, blooming, and setting fruit, they need 1 to 2 inches per square foot of water about 1. Water in the morning, and try to avoid wetting the leaves, as wet foliage encourages fungal and other diseases.
If possible, use drip irrigation to keep plants consistently and evenly watered. Mulching around the plants can help to retain moisture. Reduce watering once fruits are growing. Hot, dry weather produces the sweetest melons.
Once fruit begins to grow, prune end buds off vines. Your plants may produce fewer melons, but they will be larger and of better quality. Vines produce male and female flowers separately on the same plant. They often begin producing male flowers several weeks before the females appear. As with other cucurbits, melon flowers require pollination to set fruit, so be kind to the bees! If your muskmelons taste bland, the trouble could be a lack of magnesium in sandy soil.
How and When to Harvest Cantaloupes When rinds begin to change from green to tan or yellow, the melon is typically ripe enough to pick. Be careful not to pick too early, however. Look for a crack in the stem where it attaches to the fruit. This is a sign of ripeness as well. The fruit should be easy to separate from the vine, but if they fall off by themselves they are usually overripe.
Harvest melon when vines are dry, and be careful not to damage them. Melons will soften after harvesting, but will not continue to sweeten off the vine. Cantaloupe can be stored uncut for 5 or 6 days. If cut, they can last in the refrigerator for about 3 days, wrapped tightly in plastic. Among the sweetest varieties. Early variety that produces large, pound fruits. Produces 3-pound, aromatic melons. Early variety well-suited for gardens in colder regions. Produces 1-pound, sweetly flavored melons.
Bush variety suits gardeners with limited space. Cantaloupe was named for Cantalupo, a former papal villa near Rome. Vegetable Gardener's Handbook. What do you want to read next? Growing Melons in the Garden. When to Harvest Vegetables and Sowing Seeds in the Vegetable How to Store Vegetables and Fruit Start Saving Those Vegetable Seeds! Protect your Garden from Common The Vegetable Gardener's Handbook National Watermelon Day is August 3.
Eating With the Seasons. Tips and Treats. If the melon resists slipping off the vine, let it sit for another day and check it again. After harvesting cantaloupe, store the whole melons in the refrigerator. They will last for up to a week. Cut cantaloupe will last for days before starting to go bad. If you have lots of melons and have no hope of eating them all, you can always freeze them for later use in cool drinks, smoothies or soups.
Simply remove the seeds and rind and cut the melons into bite-sized pieces. You can also use a melon-baller to cut up the cantaloupe. Store the cut pieces in an air-tight bag in the freezer. They will last for up to 6 months. When they are done producing, you can remove the cantaloupe vines from your garden and add them to your compost pile. Now that you know about harvesting cantaloupe, it's time for a few of our favorite recipes that feature cantaloupe.
Also, start the melons indoors several weeks before the last frost, grow them to 6 inches or greater, then transplant them to the garden 3 weeks after the last frost; warm the soil in advance of transplanting by placing black plastic across the planting bed until transplant day. What a terrific article! Thank you. A lot of helpful info. I did pollinate a few times and now I have a couple of good size ones and see some smaller ones coming along.
Really excited and hope all continues to go well. The beetles are definitely a challenge!!! I hope I continue to win the battle. Thanks again for the wealth of info! Happy planting. I always go by the phrase boron rhymes with moron when growing giant pumpkins.
I used the advice about sweetening muskmelons. I did this with only using 1 tablespoon of borax with 3 tablespoons of Epsom salts. Plant leaves dying too toxic for them! Hello, I am having issues with my cantaloupe fruits I am growing in containers. The fruits form to baby cantaloupes but they turn yellow and fall off or they grow to two inches and stars shriveling and turning yellow and they stop growing. I live in Los Angeles, California and there is plenty of sun light daily.
I water the plants every other day with letting the container get full of water for deep watering before it leaves the container. Flowers and baby fruits fail when the plant is stressed; it could be the heat, do not use a high nitrogen fertilizer—use a dilute solution of fish emulsion, keep the soil evenly moist. Nip off leaves that show signs of leafminers—before they emerge and spread.
You may want to try hand pollinating some of the flowers; incomplete pollination can cause failure as well. Thanks so much for ALL of this info. I decided to grow honeydew, cantaloupe and golden melon on a whim this summer. I started them in pots and transferred them to a garden bed, they seem to be doing well. I just recently started seeing a flower or two. This article was really great, learned plenty and will be using this as a reference. Thank you so very much for all of your helpful info!
My cantaloupes were growing Beautifully in our raised beds. I have 3 melons growing now that are near ready to pick, but the plant seems to have stunted.
They literally just stopped blooming at all. There is no new vine growth, no flowers at all. We did have 7 inches of rain and cool nights for a week or so about 2 weeks ago , but the temps are back into regular range. I do water consistently and have water level detectors in each bed. They get additional light from grow bulbs because we do have shade trees that hit intermittently cause patches of shade for 2 hours during the day, but none of that has been an issue before now.
My cucumbers and watermelon have all done the same. My watermelons only grew to large softball size and then no growth for 2 weeks. They were still mostly red inside with some sweet greenish white flesh, too and tasted great, but I just wonder if you can tell me what I did wrong.
The watermelons did have some light greenish yellow leaves with small brown spots on the oldest leaves, but the rest of the plants looked stunning and made a beautiful display. The plant may have quit maturing when temperatures exceeded 87F; hot temperatures would also interrupt pollination or could cause flowers and small fruits to fail.
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