Trellising Melons & Squash

[RaresightFarms]

Hello everyone, this year I would like to attempt to vertical trellis melons and squash. We have a very small space to grow and would like to make the most of it! Everything is in individual containers so we can move them as needed at the moment.

Right now, our plants are newly transplanted into their pots, and still small, no vines yet. So I want to get everything smoothed out.

What I have is several rolls of that wide 2x3 wire fencing (https://www.wiremesh.pw/upload/image/gal ... -3_lit.jpg ...like that). Can I string this strait up, and train the plants up it? Do you think it will hold, or does it need something more substantial? Will I need to have it at an angle?

I know I will have to rig a support for each large melon as it grows. They will be too heavy for the vine to support them.

If anyone has had any luck trellising melons and squash up vertical structures, please chime in and give some tips!

[Gary350]

I have seen trellis melons grown n a sling. It looks like a sling u put a broken arm n. I have not tried it myself but it seems to work good.

One thing I know from growing melons is they need full sun all day. They love HOT weather the hotter the better they like it. They need about 10 hours a day of full sun, shade from a tree or clouds for a few hours will keep them from getting ripe. Vines will grow roots every place they touch the soil this helps the plant take in more water and melons are very large. I don't know any trick how to make trellis melons grow roots along the full length of the vines. Maybe people keep trellis vine short and limit vines to only a few melons. I plant 1 seed and get a dozen vines in all directions and 60 melons from 1 plant and the keep on making more melons until frost kills them. Short days in the fall melons do not get ripe they need lots of SUN light. I have a very hard time getting ripe melons in TN we have lots of clouds. If melons lay on wet soil they rot before they get ripe I set all my melons on cement blocks.

[Lindsaylew82]

We've used really cheap knee high hosery to tie them to the trellis. Upside is that it also keeps the sampling uninvited from boring into your fruit (...like my arch nemesis, the Pickle Worm!)
Downside is that it's harder to tell when your fruit is approaching overripeness.

[Lindsaylew82]

I've also found that the smaller the melon, the better it works. And you gotta tie them snug, cause pantyhose stretches a lot more than you'd think!

[RaresightFarms]

Well! I didn't know melons put down roots along the vines. Shoot.

[imafan26]

Yes they do, but if you trellis them up they will air prune. If you have a strong trellis it should work. I use CRW cages for the tomatoes and it works on short vined icebox watermelon , sugar baby, but it only gets about 6 ft long. I usually make a fence with my trellis and put the pot up against it rather than try to get the trellis inside the pot. It has a greater chance of tipping over that way. At my garden I have an overhead trellis. The frame looks like a tent frame only the 'legs' are made of fence posts and the canopy is made with rebar and conduit tubing with CRW stretched over the roof. The vines have to be started to climb but once they are on the roof they are on their own.

[Mr green]

Popular here in Sweden particulary in greenhouses is this method of supporting the fruits:

[Lindsaylew82]

Oh SNAP! I gotta go get my crochet hooks!

[Gary350]

Well! I didn't know melons put down roots along the vines. Shoot.

If you cover vines with dirt as they grow it helps them put down more roots. Keep out all grass and weeds that steal water from the melons. Water the plants often and you get 20 to 30 lb melons. If you don't have enough full sun they don't get ripe. If they get blossom end rot they need lime. Keep melons off the damp soil or they rot on the bottom side, I put cement blocks under my melons. I did this small melon patch in a 20'x20' spot, I kept turning the vine to make they grow back the other direction to keep them all in the same spot. I had 1 water melon plant and 1 cantaloupe plant. The water melons did better than the cantaloupes. I harvested about 60 water melons and about 10 cantaloupes. After a few months vines are totally out of control I used the lawn mower to cut off everything that got into the yard. Now I plant melons in a row and force 1 vine to stay in that row and cut off all the rest. I don't get 60 melons but I get enough for me.

[jal_ut]

I never trellis melons. Give them some space and just let them sprawl.



Charleston Gray Melon

[Lindsaylew82]

I never trellis melons. Give them some space and just let them sprawl.

Oooooohhhh to have all that wide open space...

[jal_ut]

My wide open space this morning just at sunrise. Nothin growing yet, been too cool.

[Lindsaylew82]

Green with envy! ❤️