Thanks for this thread. It was very informative.
I thought to build my own mold but a friend found these online for much less (time/money) than I could build an untested one for.
https://www.melonmold.com.
I'll update this as the growing occurs.
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TXfarmer11
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TheWaterbug
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I bought the cube one and the heart one. Here was the heart 10 days ago when I put the pumpkin in:TXfarmer11 wrote:Thanks for this thread. It was very informative.
I thought to build my own mold but a friend found these online for much less (time/money) than I could build an untested one for.
https://www.melonmold.com.
I'll update this as the growing occurs.
and here it was yesterday
Apparently I need to find a pumpkin whose destiny is _exactly_ the volume of the mold.
I put the cube mold around a fruit that aborted, so I just took it off and put it around another fruit. There's a lotta screws on these things!
If I can find it, I might try my old home-made mold as well.
This is much harder than it looks!
Last edited by TheWaterbug on Fri Sep 09, 2016 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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rainbowgardener
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Yeah as I said on previous page, it seems very tricky. If the mold is more than slightly bigger than the finished melon size, it seems like the melon won't get shaped. If the mold is more than very slightly smaller than the finished melon size, it will get bowed (as in your previous page picture), cracked, etc. I expect the growing melon can exert a LOT of pressure.
It seems like what is needed is a mold with just a little bit of give/flex at the seams. Little enough that it still squeezes/shapes the melon, but enough to keep the mold from breaking. Tricky. Can the screws be loosened to make a little more room?
It seems like what is needed is a mold with just a little bit of give/flex at the seams. Little enough that it still squeezes/shapes the melon, but enough to keep the mold from breaking. Tricky. Can the screws be loosened to make a little more room?
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TheWaterbug
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I could loosen the screws to make 1/8" more room, but I doubt that would matter much to the pumpkin. They want to be big!
But, from the link on the previous page, if I remove the mold the shape may persist through some additional growth.
So I'm going to pull the heart mold off this evening and put it on a new fruit. I'll wrap it with a nylon strap to hold it together, and when the new fruit fills it out to about 95%, I'll take it off again.
Maybe I'll get a few hearts out of this.
But, from the link on the previous page, if I remove the mold the shape may persist through some additional growth.
So I'm going to pull the heart mold off this evening and put it on a new fruit. I'll wrap it with a nylon strap to hold it together, and when the new fruit fills it out to about 95%, I'll take it off again.
Maybe I'll get a few hearts out of this.
