Too late to grow melons from seed?

Me again, with another screwup. Apparently I mixed up my seedlings several weeks ago and my Tigger Melon has turned out to be a bouncing baby Black Beauty zucchini.

Is it too late to grow a Tigger Melon from seed, do you think?

Coelli wrote:Me again, with another screwup. Apparently I mixed up my seedlings several weeks ago and my Tigger Melon has turned out to be a bouncing baby Black Beauty zucchini.

Is it too late to grow a Tigger Melon from seed, do you think?

They are a three month to maturity melon. You should be okay... what do you have to lose?

Just more time... I guess I should be glad to live somewhere where there's so much of it! But this is my first year, so I am still learning.

Coelli wrote:Just more time... I guess I should be glad to live somewhere where there's so much of it! But this is my first year, so I am still learning.

I've been "at it" since the 70's and I am always planting some "gamble" items just to see if I can stretch the limits of my zone. Where you are, you should be able to have something from the garden year round. The trick will be to have transplants ready, and understand rotation, so when you harvest and have a vacant spot it will be filled immediately. Seeds are relatively cheap or free if you learn to seed-save so get dirty and gamble a little.

kinggarbear wrote:

Coelli wrote:Just more time... I guess I should be glad to live somewhere where there's so much of it! But this is my first year, so I am still learning.

I've been "at it" since the 70's and I am always planting some "gamble" items just to see if I can stretch the limits of my zone. Where you are, you should be able to have something from the garden year round. The trick will be to have transplants ready, and understand rotation, so when you harvest and have a vacant spot it will be filled immediately. Seeds are relatively cheap or free if you learn to seed-save so get dirty and gamble a little.

+1, "So get dirty and gamble a little" is my new favorite quote!

Well, this thread swayed me...I'm putting in my melon seeds today!
Now...where to put them....

CC

as a former zone 6er i think you have plenty of time. so much depends on the weather--some years will be hotter or wetter or buggier--so "days till harvest" is just a reasonable estimate. if you have a year in exceptionally-good conditions you might start harvesting 1/3 sooner than the package says.

I started some new Tiggers in the house and will transplant them to where the interloping zucchini is once I have that out of there.

Of course, I will cry if it turns out my Connecticut Field Pumpkin is really a Tigger Melon!

You guys gave me the melon 'bug' so I came home from work during lunch break and put together a 3rd impromptu mound, the first 2 being my squash mounds. There was an empty box (due to lack of MM) with cardboard on the bottom, so I put some sand covering the cardboard, then a layer of unfinished compost, then a mound of unfinished compost, then the seeds - one side for cantaloupe, one side for watermelon - then covered that with about an inch of finished compost and watered well:



I'm hoping melons are like squash because this is the same mix I used for the squash and they seem happy with that.

Of course now next years compost pile is much smaller now...but hey, I won't need as much next year, right?

CC

I do not think that it is too late to grow the melon still you got some time and you can don it as well as i think. But yes if you will not grow right now than might be too late.

Hey Jake,
Welcome to the forum. We have several UK gardeners using the Square Foot Gardening method as taught in the book ALL NEW SQUAREFOOT GARDENING. That is the how to manual for members of this forum. Where in the UK are you? How long have you been gardening? Have you read the book? Be sure to check the Europe region subforum. Plantoid, the regional host, is located in Wales.

Kay

Thanks man thank you very much for your warm welcome. Buy the way i am quite new to the world of gardening and it is just my hobby and i do it when i get some time.

My cantaloups have broken ground! Not the watermelon yet but I'm ever hopeful!

Welcome, Jake!

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:My cantaloups have broken ground! Not the watermelon yet but I'm ever hopeful!

Awesome! My Tigger melons sprouted pretty quickly and now they're outside hardening off. There's a space waiting for them... though only one will survive.

Ironically, the melon seeds I planted the same time as you are outpacing the ones I started indoors and transplanted. Melons are notorious for not tolerating transplant well. I've always had problems with that and the melons that I plant direct in June always seem to do better.

Here in Oklahoma zone 6, I always use july 4 as the cut off date for planting melons, because that the way my grandpa did it,( but then grandpa was before SFG). As matter of fact I never plant my pumpkin seeds until the first week in July. Seems to work for me most years.

Uh oh... I planted my pumpkin at the end of April! It's already flowering and is rapidly overtaking its 2'x3' box, soon to overflow it.

My Tigger Melon seedlings went into their square a couple of days ago now that (I hope) our squirrel problem has been resolved and the electric fence is up and running. Unfortunately something decimated my honeydew baby... ate it right down to stumps. I thought I'd give it a few days and then start a new one from seed if it looked bad. Wouldn't you know it, the couple of remaining buds opened (poor thing was just naked stems with a couple of flowers) and now it's actually putting out new baby leaves, so I think it might be okay and come back. It should still be ahead of anything I could start from seed at this point!

Some day I will have melons on that trellis, I swear!

I lost the first of my Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte Melons this weekend. I suspect I disturbed it's roots too much with the resoaking I needed to do. I still have a couple more that are growing, looking a little weak, but hoping the fixed watering set up allows them to strengthen. I have two melons set on two different vines, hoping at least one of them makes it to my belly.

The early June sowing of the unknown melon seeds (can't remember if it was collective farm woman or green machine melons) are doing great. Growing well and covered in flowers. It appears a few fruit have set.

The late june planting of the Juan Canary melons have sprung up and have a few large true leaves. Plants look to be growing well. Hoping they take off.

Meanwhile, I'm eyeing the container with the two year old beafsteak tomatoe that just isn't producing well and debating a compost tea hit or riping it out and attempting a late planting of a Vert Grimpant melon. I have a little of my finish compost left, a cup or two of fresh worm casting I could harvest and a bag of mushroom compost I picked up.