Catoloupe and watermelon Overgrowing Trellis

I am growing Watermelon and cantoloupes on many trellis. I have 2 watermelons and 4 cantoloupe and I gave each plant two feet, but am wishing I would have given them more. One cantoloupe plant has over 30 babies growing on it. My consern is should i pick off some of the babies so that the trellis dos not get too heavy? Also on all of my plants they have reached the top of the trellis and I am making them go down but really have just run out of room... They are coming out of my boxes should I be cutting these back? they vines seem to be coming from all over.

Cantoloupe


Watermelon


Watermelon


Trellis

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? don't want to go chopping on my vines only to put the whole thing into shock and all the fruit falls off... I would be sick...

It all looks great! I wish I had this problem. Maybe instead of cutting back you could reinforce the trellis (vertically & horizontally)if it is really starting to sag under the weight. You will probably start harvesting the melons soon so that will help.

I agree, reinforce where your melons are. This is why I switched to chain linked fencing also.

Any suggestions on how to reinforce the trellis? Sorry I am a visual person and I am not sure what matrerials would be best. It is the rebar and conduit trellis system talked about in mels book.

Hard to say. Is the trellis actually leaning or bending. If neither, forget about it. There are green fenceposts you can buy. Sometimes called U-posts. You can hammer them into the ground by your vertical posts and then connect with wire or those plastic zip ties. If they are just leaning but holding their own, I wouldn't worry about it.

Well the trellis are not doing anything yet, but all the fruit is still baseball sized. Last year I had a trellis with just a tomato and a strong wind knocked it over(just a simple metal one from the store). I was able to fix it and save everything because I saw it when it happened. But since these are in our community garden and i do not get down there everyday I worry that they will topple without me knowing. 30+ cantoloupes all growing on one trellis has me somewhat concerned. I have never grown melons before, I had no idea that one vine could grow this many! And I have 4 plants and 2 watermelons! Good thing I love them, I am going to have a ton to eat and share. Melons and radishes seem to be the only things I can grow! LOL

How big do you expect the watermelons to get? (That is, how many pounds per fruit?)

I have one squash vine that is attempting to take over the world, even though I have been trying to watch for it forming new branches and snipping them off with garden shears as they appear. This doesn't seem to have hurt it any.

Wow! I just want to know what you used for your compost? Do you have your own compost pile that you made your mel's mix from? Did you add fertilizer? Worm castings?

That's an amazing couple of cantaloupe plants!

My compost was just a blend I got from the local nursury of 4 different kinds of compost and then I added one extra (can't remember what they were).

This year was a test. We started a community garden on some land that has been farming organiclly for over 6 years. We had some extra plots so I planted the watermelon and cantoloupe two ways. We did start late and did not get these guys in the ground until Late may or early June. AND I did not direct seed these guys. I did not read until AFTER planting that melons don't like their roots messed with and do beter if planted directly.

Types planted: American Melon Delicious 51 (4-5lb fruits), Hearts of Gold (3lb fruits), Fordhook Hybrid (14 lb fruit)
1. my plot with mels mix and trellis (4 cantoloupes and 2 watermelons)
2. community plot just regular dirt that came back with great test results (6 cantoloupe and 1 watermelon)

My observations were that the melons grew much faster in the dirt running along the ground. And produced melons faster/earlier. I think we have had too wet of a summer for the plants in the mels mix. It seems the melon in the MM would go crazy when we would hit dry spells. Now though with the heat and the dryness the trellised melons have more fruit on them, and look healthier. The ones in the ground has many leaves around the mounds turning yellow... But they do have hugh melons on them because they grew faster earlier. The next test will be the taste... which produces the sweeter melon. THEN the test next year will be trellis these guys in the dirt and see how they do... Oh and so far the American Melon Delicious 51 has made many more fruits than eany of the others.