Ripe Cantaloupes

 My Hannah’s Choice F1’s are ready!  This is all new for me.  Heat loving melons were a bit of a luxury item for me with space limited in my old greenhouse but with the building of my bigger greenhouse a year and a half ago, it was a new option.

Years before I had an attempt at growing melons in the garden.  I got seed from West Coast Seeds that were specifically for our cooler summer climate but got the usual two and a half muskmelons.  Knowing when they were ripe was a difficulty I remember – one over ripe, one bug eaten and one tastelessly immature.  Not too successful. 

Last year was my first serious try at melons inside the greenhouse.  It wasn’t well planned out -- I  just grabbed two varieties of something off the seed rack.  Hopefully they’d be good for here since they came from Pacific North West Seeds.  And being in the greenhouse it shouldn’t really matter that much.

All went well with a few melons successfully catching and getting to half size when whoosh – all the foliage died.  It appeared my watering with my wand onto the foliage, possibly too late in the day, was enough for the diseases to take over fast. 

This year I planned better.  Using Johnny’s Selected Seeds I chose not Sarah’s Choice F1 --- “Our most flavorful cantaloupe.”  but instead settled for Hannah’s Choice F1 --- “Strong disease resistance.”  I started the seeds indoors on April 15^th and transplanted into the greenhouse May 24^th – a bit late but okay.

For watering I asked my son TOG (the organic grower) to set me up with some bits of drip irrigation that he uses in his greenhouses and hoop houses.  He was most helpful, knowing all the ins and outs of garden hose threads verses irrigation fittings, drip emitters, manifolds, plugs, end knots and the like.  The plan was to run three lines in parallel down one of the three beds in the greenhouse.  

Then cover the lines with landscape fabric to inhibit weeds and insulate the foliage from any excessive moisture.

My goal was to not hook the drip lines up to the hose but to fill a tank (garbage can) on a stand and let it seep into the bed slowly.  

TOG also solved my dilemma of engineering a ‘spigot’ coming out of the cylindrical tank.  It took a bit of trouble shooting with filling and emptying but it worked.  I watered / filled the garbage can usually once a day and it drained in four or five hours.  My sandy soil could have used a fourth line for better coverage – hopefully next year.

The two plants grew well and I let the delicate vines go anywhere within their allotted 20 square feet.  

The flowers weren’t catching right away but I waited patiently and eventually they started to catch here and there.  By mid-July ventilation control in the greenhouse trumps temperature control since the tomatoes can get blight with damp foliage.  Thus leaving the doors partly open overnight for ventilation probably helped the cantaloupes as well.

I counted seven then eight melons and lately found a ninth hidden in a corner.  A few weeks ago the foliage started to die and now everything is mostly dead.  But would they ripen?  And how would I know when they were ripe?

A week ago, TOG came by and looked at the hard things – nicely netted but green in the background underneath the netting.  He said to wait and use my nose.  So I did.  On my hands and knees with my butt in the air and my face in the dead foliage.  After five days things started to smell and change colour!  The green was turning a nice champagne beige yellow.  I picked one.  It was almost ripe – not totally yellow all over.  A day later the greenhouse was full of the sweet smell of cantaloupe and I found the culprit.  He was very tasty and sweet.  Now I’ve picked the third one.  I think we’ll be able to keep up.

  

So far they average two pounds each, smaller than advertised.  I’ll definitely have some finished, aged compost going for next year.  

My Lovely Wife figures we won’t need as many Roma paste tomatoes next year so it looks like I’ll have room to try some watermelons too.

Happy Gardening.