Melon questions (3); thank you ahead of time.

[nao57]

So... we got garden fertilizer last year, and shocking surprise; suddenly we could grow melons. Before this I couldn't grow melons worth a darn. So it was a success on growing them. They need good nutrients and a very specific watering cycle to grow. So if you are interested in trying them you want a higher number of watering times per day compared to other plants and that's what worked for us. (Not more water, but more spread out in the day because of being a vine plant.)

So you can try melons also if you want!

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Here are the 3 questions I had on melons;

#1

Melons are hard to store long term compared to other vegetable plants. This is their downside in fact. So we found out sometimes parts of them would go bad. But we have an apple tree and with apples you can cut off the bad parts and then eat the other parts and it will still be good. Can you adapt this approach for melons? How would it also be different? Any problems with trying to save the good parts when part is bad, and how much buffer space can you get away with saving or losing between the good and bad parts when saving parts of a melon from parts that went bad?

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#2

Is there an ideal storing temperature for melons? This didn't work out like other vegetables where we could put them in the basement and hope they'd be fine.

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#3

I found it odd that melons when you first pluck a ripe melon from the vine its not actually at its best taste. This is from the fruit pulp still being a bit hard still and the sugars aren't fully developed in it. And this conflicts with the idea that if you leave the stuff on the vine then the vine produces less. So you are running this balancing game between trying to pluck them early as possible but still letting them sit to ripen to soften enough for the sugar inside to develop. I hoped someone might have some insight or more information on this part of the process? Thanks.

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Feel free to post also questions or messages to me if there are things you are trying to figure out also. I want to both give and take and not just take on information.

 

[Debbie292d]

We raise melons. If speaking about watermelons, here in Wisconsin we have two types that will grow; seedless or unseeded. The unseeded need a seeded one though to pollinate it. They do pretty well, but would rather find a better watermelon that's seedless on its own.

That said, we're no experts here, but I'll take a stab at a couple of things as I pondered.

1. We've never tried cutting a hunk off of anything and keeping it in storage other than the fridge at that point. For instance, we've stored cucumbers in the basement for weeks at a time, but if one has a spot that needs to be cut off, we'd either leave it alone if it's not bothering it now or if it's a bad spot because it's overripe, we wouldn't store it at all, just eat it or put in the fridge.

2. Watermelons we have stored in the basement about the same as the cukes, a few weeks at most. Our basement stays cool though, in the low to mid 60s year-round.

3. You must be a real connoisseur of melons as we've never noticed any difference, but that's not saying there isn't one, and I bet you're right! And yes, it's true about anything though that picking off or "pruning" helps the rest of the plant thrive better. If you would rather them be a bit sweeter, rather than leaving them on the vine, could you pick them and just leave them there, either on the ground or in a basket for a day or two?

 

[nao57]

We raise melons. If speaking about watermelons, here in Wisconsin we have two types that will grow; seedless or unseeded. The unseeded need a seeded one though to pollinate it. They do pretty well, but would rather find a better watermelon that's seedless on its own.

That said, we're no experts here, but I'll take a stab at a couple of things as I pondered.

1. We've never tried cutting a hunk off of anything and keeping it in storage other than the fridge at that point. For instance, we've stored cucumbers in the basement for weeks at a time, but if one has a spot that needs to be cut off, we'd either leave it alone if it's not bothering it now or if it's a bad spot because it's overripe, we wouldn't store it at all, just eat it or put in the fridge.

2. Watermelons we have stored in the basement about the same as the cukes, a few weeks at most. Our basement stays cool though, in the low to mid 60s year-round.

3. You must be a real connoisseur of melons as we've never noticed any difference, but that's not saying there isn't one, and I bet you're right! And yes, it's true about anything though that picking off or "pruning" helps the rest of the plant thrive better. If you would rather them be a bit sweeter, rather than leaving them on the vine, could you pick them and just leave them there, either on the ground or in a basket for a day or two?

Wow. Thanks for the reply! Its very cool to get the chance to exchange ideas. Your experience is great too.

I don't feel like an expert at all, more like I just feel hungry to know stuff. And not starve.

On your question: where I'm at we try to not leave stuff out long as it seems its hard to avoid bugs getting into it, or just forgetting its there the day after haha. You could probably leave them out a day or so, but I would probably guage that by how thick the foliage and plant matter around it is. if there's not a lot of sun cushion around it then I'd not leave it out long. But if there's some sun cushion I think your idea would work. Also that makes sense too since you'd want to bring stuff all in the same load to save time and gas, etc.

Some time leaving it there might even be beneficial even as it would improve the color. You had a good idea!