A few years ago I tried grown cantaloupe melons. I managed to harvest 2 miniature cantaloupe melons. They were the size of oranges but super sweet. I took a break of two years and decided to try growing melons again. I planted both honeydew and cantaloupe during the summer. I saw a lot of flowers but no melon was forming. Master Ken has talked about the type of weather corn and melons love - so hot that it's uncomfortable to fall to sleep at night. They thrive in that kind of weather, and we are definitely not get that here on Sand Village Farm. We hardly even had any summer this year. We had a couple heatwaves, and one came through while I was in New York. When I came back from New York, I was delighted to see a golf ball size honeydew melon.
More than a month went by, and that melon grew to the size of a tennis ball. I could see that it just wasn't going to get any bigger, and it is now fall. It's not going to get any warmer. Today I cut it up in quarters to eat it. It smelled wonderful and tasted sweet. Would you buy miniture melons? I would because it is like a personal size melon. You can eat it all by yourself. It would be really cute to serve a scoop of gelato in a halve miniature melon. What do you think?
We'd like to grow tennis ball sized melons! Where did you get the seeds?
ReplyDeleteTonia, I believe that I just picked up some 4 inch honeydew melons from either CVS or OSH. They weren't special dwarf melons. They just stayed small because El Cerrito doesn't get hot enough. In order to grow big (normal) size melons, they need hot temperature, the kind that makes you feel uncomfortable at night - 80-90 degrees. If you live near El Cerrito, you can try growing them. They will probably stay small.
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