northern melons?
Is it possible to grow melons in USDA Zone 4? The last 2 yrs I've tried to grow muskmelons & watermelons w/ no success. I get healthy vines & even some decent looking fruit, but they never reach full maturity. I thought I was going to have 1 watermelon last year, but when I cut it open it was a sloppy, off-color, sour smelling mess.
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Alan in Vermont
- Senior Member
- Posts: 105
- Joined: Sun Feb 21, 2010 5:20 pm
- Location: Northwest Vermont, Champlain Valley
I've had very poor results with watermelons, even (supposed)85 day varieties. Two years ago I had some nice looking melons but very few ripened. Last year, a wet and cool one, I had none that ever got ripe even though they grew big. One odd thing is that melons that were billed as 8" fruit got nearly 12", as if they kept growing but never matured.
My cantaloupe(sp) did slightly less than nothing last year. (: The year before that I had a decent crop of vine ripened melons that were easily the best I had ever eaten.
Hope being eternal I will try both again this year. Next week I am hoping to start laying out the hills for all my vine crops and get my tire and plastic tents over them to get the soil temperature up. If I can manage that I want to get the melons and one batch of acorn squash in the ground by the last week in April.
My cantaloupe(sp) did slightly less than nothing last year. (: The year before that I had a decent crop of vine ripened melons that were easily the best I had ever eaten.
Hope being eternal I will try both again this year. Next week I am hoping to start laying out the hills for all my vine crops and get my tire and plastic tents over them to get the soil temperature up. If I can manage that I want to get the melons and one batch of acorn squash in the ground by the last week in April.
I don't know about watermelons, but there are short season muskmellons that are quite good. One is Minnesota Midget, which can be container grown. The fruit are small, about a pound, and the plant tends to grow and flower quickly/early in the season, vines get up to 6 ft long, but are listed as 3-4ft.
Well, here in zone 5, I haven't yet been able to have good luck with water melons or cantaloupes for that matter.
I posted almost an identical question to this a few weeks ago and from the responses I got I have determined that to grow melons successfully in the north, you need the right (early maturing) variety, very rich, nutrient filled soil (I.e. lots of compost), and you have to have the weather cooperate with you (lots of sunshine without too much rain. I'd say that it's 2 parts skill and 1 part luck.
Good luck with the melons this year.
I posted almost an identical question to this a few weeks ago and from the responses I got I have determined that to grow melons successfully in the north, you need the right (early maturing) variety, very rich, nutrient filled soil (I.e. lots of compost), and you have to have the weather cooperate with you (lots of sunshine without too much rain. I'd say that it's 2 parts skill and 1 part luck.
Good luck with the melons this year.
Never had a problem growing cantaloupe or watermelon (I am zone 5 - Southern Michigan). The most difficult thing bout watermelon is having the experience to know when they are ready to go...
I always plant on plastic after frost from starts... successively and after the starts are in new replications go in as seed. Transplants are very fragile and do not like their roots disturbed, or stems stressed (as in removing from plastic trays) therefore I start them in peat pots which are planted right into the ground.
I also find that if you transplant from plastic trays the shock to the roots and stem cause the plant to layover for quite a while before running...
If you develop melons and they don't get very large before shriveling and or dying and falling off then that is a sign of poor pollination.
These plants don't like to be in standing water either.... There are quite a few diseases that can whack them also. Mildew and gummy stem particularly.
For watermelon harvest... Look at the tendrils on either side of the melon. When the one by the melon and the 2 on either side are dead they are ready to go... They will not ripen off of the vine unlike cantaloupe.
Cantaloupe harvest for immediate use when they slip from the vine. When you can push on the vine firmly and it begins to separate from the melon slightly it is ready to go if you plan to use it in a week... You will smell it when it is ready on the counter.
This years varieties..
Cantaloupe -
Orange Sherbert & Atlantis (75 & 80 day)
Hybrid Melon -
Tweety
Watermelon - Crimson Sweet Type
Compadre (85 day)
I always plant on plastic after frost from starts... successively and after the starts are in new replications go in as seed. Transplants are very fragile and do not like their roots disturbed, or stems stressed (as in removing from plastic trays) therefore I start them in peat pots which are planted right into the ground.
I also find that if you transplant from plastic trays the shock to the roots and stem cause the plant to layover for quite a while before running...
If you develop melons and they don't get very large before shriveling and or dying and falling off then that is a sign of poor pollination.
These plants don't like to be in standing water either.... There are quite a few diseases that can whack them also. Mildew and gummy stem particularly.
For watermelon harvest... Look at the tendrils on either side of the melon. When the one by the melon and the 2 on either side are dead they are ready to go... They will not ripen off of the vine unlike cantaloupe.
Cantaloupe harvest for immediate use when they slip from the vine. When you can push on the vine firmly and it begins to separate from the melon slightly it is ready to go if you plan to use it in a week... You will smell it when it is ready on the counter.
This years varieties..
Cantaloupe -
Orange Sherbert & Atlantis (75 & 80 day)
Hybrid Melon -
Tweety
Watermelon - Crimson Sweet Type
Compadre (85 day)