melon question

I am thinking of growing small melons in a not too deep container. Does anyone know if they have shallow or deep roots?

Heather Y.

Melon roots will go 25 ft if they are searching water.

Wow!
I water them, of course.
Heather

An advantage to a larger container (the bigger, the better) is that you may be able to get by with daily watering, without running into crises on hot days. This is risky with small pots.

You could set up a slow soaker for the smaller container- a couple of 1 gallon plastic jugs (milk, water) with small holes poked in the bottom. Water will weep out through the day. You may have to test a couple of hole sizes (or add more holes) to make it water at the right rate.

Better to plant in as large a container as possible.

Most melons are rampant vines. You can trellis them, then support the fruit in a sling, made from nylon stockings.

I am planning to trellis them, and after this feedback, I will plant them in the container that is actually a half buried milk crate. In the buried milk crate I have put a disused metal shoe tree, right now it is held in place by the weight of a planter with Scotch and Iris moss I am growing for under flagstones, also, it is tilted and and propped at an angle along the chain link fence.
Adding another planter ( or a coir one) to one of the levels is what I had planned to do to secure the shoe tree, leaving the upper shoe tree levels for supporting melons- I want to plant the small fruited ones like or two pounds -four.

The vines are the things I want most to contain, i was planning to train them down and back onto the shoe tree as they grew. Last year I planted lufffa along the fence and it grew about four stories up into the neighbor's cedar.

I did not harvest a whole lot of luffa that way, and what I did I had to do it standing on a ladder
with a hooked piece of metal, it was nuts.

Heather

Well, the other melons are not going to grow 4 stories into a neighbor's tree, but I think a milk crate is too small. Still, try it, see what happens.

I will try it. It can grow through the milk crate holes if it needs to to get to water or just needs to grow.
wish me luck.
Heather Y

Here is a picture of the melon "planter" and it's shoe tree.

You are finding creative ways to reuse things- the display rack in your other post becoming a vertical planter, now the shoe rack as a support for a window box and melons. Nice ideas!

That's fabulous. Sure enjoy watching your adventures.
:~)

Here are some melon pics, I am trying to figure out if they are ready to pick.
I have two types, One type is the small 2 - 4 pound type I am sure I planted
in the planter. The trouble is that I got the first one of these from an area where
I have other melon plants spring from compost, I think. All I know is that I did not
plant anything there this spring.

The first two are of the one I picked up off the ground and ate. At first, the smooth skin made me think it was mutated or spoiled.

The next two show the "mottling" I expect to find on supermarket melons, though one is
from the "volunteer plants" area and the other is from the melon planter area.
They are both more oblong than round, which is why I left them both on the vine.

Last one -This one is the from the "volunteer plants" area and creeping up the strawberry planter, which I will now complete after the melons are done, LOL!

There are some little green melons which were flowers about a week ago and I don't know if they will make it in the approx 60 more days left. If I can learn to tell a male blossom from a female blossom I might try hand pollinating just this one delicious fruit - bees seem to get on the job quite late. Needless to say I resolve to start them earlier next year.

If the stem comes off real easy, they are ready. Light tan color is a good sign.

The one in the middle picked itself when i tried to put more supportive garden junk
underneath it. Despite the fact that it did not really come off easily - it looked more
like a tear than a neat break, I cut it open and it tastes great.

It is oblong, and the skin under the mottling is a a nice orange color which almost
matches the color inside. It is larger, I think it is a gro store melon- left another week
maybe it would be round
The tiny specialty melons are about about a hand's width, this is bigger than my hand.
Taste is not the same, but it is good eating.

If you would have waited a week, you would have had a mushball that stunk.

Okay, that does i, I am picking the other one!