growing watermelons etc in gh

just curious if anyone has grown watermelons, cantaloupe or pumpkin in the greenhouse????? In containers?????? Need your input.
Thanks
Cricket

The closest I have gotten to any of those is gourds. They were happy but quickly became a knotted mess that I ended up letting dry out and I tossed them. LOL Of course I have a very small greenhouse and they were extras so I didn't spend the time to put them in larger pots. Shame on me!

I have 38 cross ties that were here on the property when we bought the place. I am goin to make a huge grow bed------ekkkk its gonna cost at least $320 to fill it with dirt. I will grow the melons in it. That gives me an 8inch deep bed. Do you think the crisco will harm the melons????????????? Please say no. crossing fingers


Cricket

By cross ties do you mean railroad ties? If so, then I think you are talking about creosote (sp?). I have heard that you should not grow edibles in beds with railroad ties but that is something you will want to read up on. I know you will find both opinions-people that do it and people that swear you should not but you'll kind of have to make the decision yourself. I hope I understood you correctly.

My greenhouse is built on top of railroad ties to give me extra headroom but I don't grow anything in the ground. I am hoping to buy a larger hoophouse later this year to put up closer to the road. :)

yep,,,,,, rail road ties--with all that black treatment.
I have heard not to use them to grow veggies. Surely it cannot be worse than the chemicals used for pests.
I pretty much decided to just use the rail road ties for flower beds. Busted my bubble.
sorry for the delayed response----computer crashed----IM back now.

Cricket

Hi Cricket! Sorry about your computer woes and the bubble busting. ;) It's a kick in the pants when you get excited over something and it falls through. I'm sure you will come up with a way to get'r done!

My answer to everything is GROW BAGS.

I will grow the melons in 5 gallon grow bags and see how that works. What can I lose. Water expense, seed expense, fertilizer expense, grow bag expense? And alot of time. The grow bags only cost $0.26 each.

I will lay out some commercial ground cover, set up my grow bags, put mulch on the entire ground cover area to prevent the cover from burning up the vines cause it gets real hot in the summer. Plant, water, fertilize and see what happens. Plus the mulch should also prevent the melons from rotting right? We shall see.
They will not be grown in the greenhouse area. Bad idea. They will be grown out in the big open sunnny plot with lots of natural pollination.

If ya'll would like---I will keep records and pictures of the progress for those interested.

Cricket

Vine crops have a very large root system. They will go until they find water. That is why they do best on sandy ground. We used to have field near the river. It was the top of a sand quarry. Water stood in ponds where they had removed the sand. That was 30 feet below our growing area. One year we had a extended drought. Melon & squash kept right on growing, actually one of our best years. That means those roots were 30 feet long.
I'm not sure how that would compare to what would happen in grow bag.
Also, unless you use some bush type plant, where are all the vines going.
We plant rows 11 feet apart & 27" apart in rows. You litterly cannot walk in there from the time they bloom until you start picking. Vines are to thick.
Pumpkins have even longer vines. I was weeding one day & decided to follow a pumpkin vine. 45 feet long!
Good luck!
Bernie

cross ties (or railroad ties) soaked in creosote can leach arsenic into the soil which is then picked up by anything you grow there. it's ok for flowers since we don't eat them but i would definitely not use them for any edibles. concrete chimney blocks are relatively inexpensive and you can dress up the bed by planting flowers in the holes of the blocks.

so if i tried to grow a pumpkin or watermelon in a 5 gallon container , it would become root bound before harvest?

I am flustrated cause I cannot grow the pumpkins or watermelons in the ground unless ---I just make my hills and forget about the grass that grows around them. I have no tiller. And the ground is pure clay. there has to be an answer out there somewhere.

desperate. I have 55 gallon drums. How bout that. will that grow a darn pumpkin? lol
I could cut them in half.
Just seems crazy that you can grow anything in this world in a container but you cant grow a pumpkin or watermelon.

thanks for all the help folks.

Cricket

If I were you (and trust me we are walking parallel lives right now except you have BIG greenhouses and a tractor. LOL), I'd go ahead and try growing them in the ground. Could you maybe dig big holes on a higher spot and back fill with sand? Sand is cheap! And before you say anything, remember you are talking to someone that has dug 4 out of her 5 ponds by hand! ;)

i have only dug 3 ponds by hand in my life.
I have dug tomato holes 2 feet deep before and replaced the soil but that was only 6 holes.
My husband does have a 9 inch auger on his tractor but thats not wide enough to dig holes for the melons.
Yes I did think about diggin a whole for each mound hill and putting in good soil. What about the grass ---its just gonna take over my mounds and I will still have a grass problem.

I am a lost case.

I even thought----what if i put down my ground cover---for controlling the grass. Cut a square hole in the ground cover where i want each mound---dig the grass out of each whole----replace with dirt with good compost and peat moss--and box in each mound with 2x6s---like mini 2ft by 2ft grow box.

or forget the whole idea completely and face the fact that I have no control. And i have to buy my melons. ug.
where is the fun in that?

Cricket

Can you get cardboard somewhere? When I moved I laid down thick cardboard and put dirt on top since I didn't have the time to kill the grass. Maybe you could do that and throw straw down on top? That would keep the weeds at bay, kill the grass and keep your melons out of the mud. Now that just doesn't sound right at all! LOL

lol

after pondering and getting headaches:

I am goin to lay out a strip of ground cover 12x75.
I will grow them all in 5 gallon grow bags.
The grow bags will be a few feet from one side of the ground cover. I will keep all the vines running to the other side where most of the ground cover will be so i can walk down one side and water the plants in the grow bags. I will keep the vines cut so they dont go past the ground cover. The later melons dont mature well anyway.
stupidcricketsmelons! should be my name right now.


Cricket

you can side step all the bad press about RRX ties by puting a layer of black plastic between your ties and the soil you are planting in, that way even if the arsnic story is correct, it doesn't mater because the soil you are growing in doesn't tuch the ties-- also if you plant mellons and squash in a bug-tite greenhouse you have to pollinate, by hand or set up a big fan to move air and shake the plants once a week, or so---

yeh ---last year when i started my squash ---some plants had female blooms and some only had male blooms. I took off the male blooms and pollinated the females so I would for sure get squash until they all started blooming both male and female on each plant. Have you ever noticed how the first females hardly ever make it to squash? I help mine out.

Yes I have noticed, --I used to leave the door to the greenhouse open till it started to get hot, --as the small bumble bees are working in the cool of the day just before daylight until it starts to warm up--they are sure good pollinators---I use a paint brush and swish it in a male flower and then go along and do the female ones---good luck with your project---Michael

the problem with using old railroad ties is that the creosote in them will leach arsenic into the ground which in turn is picked up by the plants roots. a better idea would be to use concrete blocks.

RR ties are a no-no for food crops plus since creosote is a known carcinogen ,

I would even think twice about handling them or breathing the fumes on a hot day.

Actually,,,, I do have a book in my garden library that has an example of growing cantaloupe in the gh. The author planted in 5 gal buckets and ran the vines vertically up and down a trellis. The fruit was cradled in pantyhose slings on the trellis. Not that this would be a suitable solution for production in quantity - but for the hobbyist - it isn't a bad idea.. He grew melons all winter that way.

I grew the mellons on a trellis and just let the fruit hang, --when they were ripe they fell off, --they were always perfectly ripe when they fell, ---

Back in March, I decided not to use the cross ties for the veggies. AT that time I already had a few flower bed edged with cross ties. In one flower bed was strawberry plants around the inside edge and they did pretty good at first---now they look sick. In the other flower bed--nothing grows next to the cross ties. Only a foot away from the cross ties.
Thank you for telling me not to use them. I still have 20 or more cross ties out back. The only thing I can do with them is build gold fish ponds.
As for the flower beds----I will be replacing the crossties with concrete blocks and landscape timbers.

I never grew any melons in the greenhouse but I did put some in 5 gallon containers out in the open. They are doin ok but I am not satisfied. I also put some in 1/2 barrel planters and they look real good. So the plan is to use the container soil next spring --in the ground. One of my new neighbors has a cow farm and said I could have all the barn yard fertilizer I wanted. I just take a flat bed trailer over to his house and he loads it up with his tractor.
Now I am hoping tomato produce sales will buy me a tiller.

Thanks
Cricket

I completely missed this thread earlier in the year.

I do, in fact, have cantalope and butternut squash in 7.5 G growbags in the greenhouse. I didn't plant them early this year, so it's still too soon for me to make any conclusions about their progress, but it's been an interesting experiment. I actually tossed them in the growbags because I didn't have the ground prepped for them yet and...never took them back out. I know that squash tend to have very large root systems and resent having their roots disturbed, so I really don't know what to expect here and I'm not sure I'm up to trying to transplant 7.5 G. If I get really ambitious I may try planting some in the ground and leaving some in bags, for comparison. I will say that the greenhouse squash aren't as big as the compost pile squash...but that's normal for me.

I'll try to get some pictures.

I tried squash in grow bags last year. They didn't do so well for me. They did ok but not great. Like you said----Compost pile did better. But like you ---I have no garden plot yet but working on it.

The cantaloupes that I have in the 25 gallon barrels have produced several melons. I been watering them with some horse manure tea and they look better this week. Will also take pictures of the melons in barrels.

Hmmm, perhaps I should just do the work to set them all in the ground, then.
Here they are from a couple weeks ago.

And, for fun, here's the compost squash from this morning.

You should end up with heaps of squash off the compost pile.


This is my squash last year. I grew them in a Bag of Compost Manure. All I did was fertilize them once a week and watered them every other day.
I cut slits in one side of the bag and cut a square whole in the other side and set my plants in it.

I put the squash in 1/2 barrels this year and the plants dont look as good but they are producing more than the ones from last year in the bags.

:-?

now, the cantaloupes.
I grew some cantaloupes in 1/2 barrels and some in 5 gallon pots. Making sure each plant had the same amount of soil. I put 2 cantaloupes in one 5 gallon pot. I put 12 cantaloupes in a 27 gallon --half barrel.
The half barrel looks better and has nice size cantaloupes.

Barrel of cantaloupes

the little cantaloupes in the barrels

The sad picture:
Cantaloupes in the 5 gallon pots---EKKKK

I hope I improve its looks by watering it manure tea which i started on yesterday.

Cricket..My ex FIL used to grow cucs.He jUSt filled a bushel basket(old one) with compost and then dug them halfway into the ground and mounded up the soil .He planted the seeds in the basket and watered everynite.with a 5 gal pail of water.I,m figuring the melons would do the same thing/.The basket would decompose and the roots would find thier way everywhere.I would think that even in clay soil they would do thier thing..I,ll try it next year.I have clay soil also.Justa s long as the basket has good stuff in it (drainage)

Gord in BC

I'm growing orange flesh watermelons in my greenhouse this year. Using pantyhose around the melons to support their weight and tying them up. Works great!

Which variety of orange watermelon are you growing? I've always wanted to try growing suspended melons, but never been brave enough.

I've moved the cantelopes out of the greenhouse, but they're still in the growbags. The greenhouse they were in exploded in a windstorm (uv-weakened plastic + 80mph wind gusts = torn shreds). I only had non-uv resistant film on that one; it lasted seven months. Amazingly, nothing else (plants or frame) was damaged, so no big deal.

tropicalaria

It's called orange sunshine and it's a seedless hybrid. The only downfall was having to plant all 10 seeds in the greenhouse because of not knowing which were the male pollinators. But it's worked out. It gets unruly but i'm sure having fun.

How do you like using the growbags? I'm researching them right now on the internet to see if they'd work out for me. I grow mostly peppers so they're in nursery containers and doing well. But, I'd like to try them for the tomatoes.

Luckily for me my DH really worked hard battening down my GH in time for our annual Monsoon storms and it doesn't even move now. Sorry you had trouble!