Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe/Other Melons

[lynnee]

Those are wonderful pictures, scarfguy! I wish I had time now to experiment with growing the Sugar Cube melons. You may recall that I couldn't pollinate my Minnesota Midget melons.

[scarfguy]

UPDATE:  74 days.

I've just been watching my melons grow.

I removed the one last week that developed very early and was lying on the deck.  I didn't think it was ready but I wanted to see and I thought maybe removing one would spike some development. It was not quite ripe but it was eatable and did have some sweetness to it.  Better than some that I've paid good money for at the grocery store.

I originally had 7 developing melons. The smallest one decided to shrivel up and die.  I think the melon plant knows when it has too many melons to develop with available resources.

So now I have 5 on the plant.  The plant seems to be rather dormant. It's not dropping any leaves but it's only growing a few small leaves, stems, and flowers.  I think it has turned it's attention to developing sugars in the fruit.

When to harvest always is a challenge. The days til harvest says 81 days but I'm not seeing any separation indications from the stem yet so I think the 81 days is a bit shy.  You want to harvest when the stem begins to crack from the melon.  If you wait until the melon falls from the plant, that is just a little too ripe.

I'm gonna try the "CAT METER" again.  You hold your cat up to the melon and if she sniffs it, it's ready! If she ignores it, it's not ripe yet!   Cats can smell the melon before humans can.

The largest melon is about 5  1/2 inches in diameter.

The smallest melon is just under 4 inches in diameter

[lynnee]

Your melons are absolutely amazing, scarfguy!

[scarfguy]

TODAY:  HARVEST TIME!

This is the largest of the 6 melons on this (mini sugar cube) melon. 

The first one I harvested a couple of weeks ago and it wasn't quite ripe.  This one is just about perfect.

I tugged on it lightly and it slipped easily from the vine. It is 3 lbs and 5.75 inches in diameter.

The documents on this melon say that time-to-harvest is 81 days.  They got that one right cause the LCD on the bounty says 81 days!

As I'm writing this, the melon is already half gone (my breakfast). They aren't very big. 

The flesh is firm and very sweet although not quite as sweet as the popular Minnesota Midget in my opinion.

There are 4 melons left on the vine which should be ripe over the next week or so.

[LoveSalads]

If that's not food P!@# I don't know what is. Nice eye candy looks absolutely delicious. 

[scarfguy]

MELON UPDATE:

It is with a heavy heart that I sliced and enjoyed the last of my 6 melons from the "mini sugar cube" plant.

All melons were perfectly ripe, (2-3 lb, 5-5.5" diameter) melons.  Very sweet and tasty.

I have already begun the next cycle.  This seedling is a variety of small melon called a "baby bear honey melon".   It comes from a single source.  An Etsy seller who has a large selection of mini melons:

www.etsy.com/shop/SeedsBeeBlooming

She appears to be hybridizing her own varieties and offers them in small amounts.  This particular variety no longer seems to be available. I don't know if she will be offering more in the future.  It appears to be a GALIA variety with a golden netted skin.   I'm hoping for the best!

[pfunnyjoy]

Your melons looked so nice! Long ago, when I had an outdoor garden, I grew some baby melons on a trellis and they were wonderful! 

[scarfguy]

UPDATE:

It's now day 38 and the baby bear honey melon is growing nicely.  The vines are grabbing the netting (and every thing else they can get their tendrils on!). 

I have had male flowers for about 2 weeks now but just got the first female flowers a couple of days ago.

There are 2 female flowers that I pollinated yesterday.

In this pic is the single melon plant growing from the right bounty. The left bounty is currently unused.

Male flowers:

Pollinated female flower:

[pfunnyjoy]

Plants look beautiful! Fingers crossed that you get nice melons out of this variety too!

[scarfguy]

UPDATE: Day 57 TERMINATED!

For those of you following my melon experiments, you need to know that growing cantaloupe in an AG is really difficult! and can be very discouraging.

This cycle has been an utter failure.  I have lots of female flowers now and have pollinated about 30 of them.

NONE OF THEM HAVE DEVELOPED!.  They have all turned yellow and shrivelled up.

I have enough experience now to know that I am successfully hand pollinating them but for some reason they just will not produce fruit.

I have a theory though...  These seeds were offered by a small (etsy) grower. It was a hybrid called "honey bear".   I couldn't find it anywhere else and discovered it was the seed lady's own hybrid.  I suspect that it produced fruit from the first generation hybrid BUT, perhaps, she didn't check the viability of successive generations before selling the seeds.

SO.... today, I'm gonna cut my losses and start again.  This time, I'm gonna go back to a proven winner, the popular MINNESOTA MIDGET!

[LoveSalads]

So sad after 2 months not to get any fruit started. One day when I decide Slicers are not that important I have a perfect spot to try my hand at Cantaloupe as I really like those also. For some reason I can't grow a descent batch outside. Have tried several times had a few but also had a few days sitting on the throne ,makes me a wee bit gun shy to try outside again.