The Milkweed Diaries

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Melon Harvest

In the photo at left is our entire melon harvest this year.

I had never grown melon before this year, and just gave it a whirl because some free starts were available from our Sugar Creek greenhouse class.

The plants did pretty well for a while, growing in the shade of a bean trellis. Eventually, they got hit with squash beetles, powdery mildew, and drought, and they just never really seemed to thrive.

In the end, these two little peach-sized melons were all we had to show for our attempts at melon-growing this year.

The variety is "Tigger"--an Armenian heirloom that the seed catalog says can weigh up to a pound--not ours!

Obviously, we welcome tips from you, dear reader, on getting a coaxing a bit more bountiful harvest from melon plants next time around!

1 comment:

jack-of-all-thumbs said...

We got whacked by the squash beetles as well, though in hindsight it would have been easy to keep them under control by removing the eggs. They are quite distinctive, orange red and shiny, laid on the tops of the leaves in almost geometric patterns.

Next year.......