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Melon growing...any tips?

jamiem.moultonjamiem.moulton Posts: 3
in Fruit & veg
Hi everyone,

First time post from new gardener.

I'm fairly new to gardening and growing. I successfully grew a batch of chilli plants on my window sill last year which I harvested, cooked and froze. This year I'm growing bell peppers which seem to be doing well and I also planted some Honeydew melon seeds which again, are doing well so far but are these are even practical to grow indoors on a window sill?

I saw on the Alan Titchmarsh program a couple of weeks ago that you have to pollinate the flowers but beyond that I don't really know what i'm doing. Any tips?

I made this little timelapse movie of the melons growing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaYEY73ULLo

Thanks,

Jamie

Posts

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    Excellent video!  Unfortunately, it's not really practical to grow melons on a windowsill simply due to the large size of a plant mature enough to produce fruit.  I grow them up support netting in a greenhouse and each plant takes up a space of about 2m (high) x 1m (wide.)  If you don't have any outdoor space, perhaps you could ask a friend with a greenhouse or sunny garden if they could grow them for you and offer them half of the fruit in payment?  Just an idea. :)
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • jamiem.moultonjamiem.moulton Posts: 3
    Thanks Bob and thanks for the reply. I did fear that. They're actually on a window sill in our conservatory. I was thinking about putting up a support net but based on your advice with regards to size, I may not bother. Do you think keeping them pruned back smaller would work, or would that affect their production too much?
  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,385
    You could try - the trick is waiting for a few female flowers to appear and get pollinated but it's impossible to know where those will appear on the plant.  The usual way of growing them is to let them climb to the maximum height you have available then pinch-out the growing tip and let 2 of the sideshoots which will form trail back down.  As soon as you have 1 or 2 melons set, you can nip-out the tips of any new sideshoots to keep the plant at that size.
    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • jamiem.moultonjamiem.moulton Posts: 3
    Ah ok. Maybe I'll continue to let them grow for a bit and see how it goes. I've only got 3 seedlings. Thanks so much for the great advice. I'll let you know if they're successful, I'm very new to this growing lark!
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