Melons are considered fruit in terms of taste, but are actually a vegetable due to the plants dying when they are harvested. The propagation and breeding of melons therefore takes place by extracting seeds from the ripe fruits.
How do I successfully grow melons?
To grow melons successfully, choose the right variety for your location, get seeds from ripe fruits, grow the melons from April and plant them when the nights are frost-free. Protect the young plants from snails.
Selecting suitable varieties
To choose the right melon varieties for growing in the garden, you should not only consider personal taste, but also the sunlight and the space available at the planned location. Large varieties of watermelon like Crimson Sweet require a lot of space for their long tendrils and the fruit that rests on the ground. Smaller watermelons such as the Sugar Baby and muskmelons such as the Galia or the Charentais also bear fruit on climbing vines and can therefore be well suited for growing in a greenhouse.
The extraction of seeds
Basically, the seeds for growing melons can not only be bought in well-stocked specialist seed shops (€3.00 on Amazon), but can also be obtained from fruits you have grown yourself or bought in the supermarket. While choosing the seeds when growing yourself allows you to avoid hybrid varieties with poor opportunities for further propagation, you usually have to rely on luck when it comes to purchased fruits. First remove any stuck pulp before gently drying the melon seeds and storing them in an airy place. Otherwise they can easily become moldy and lose their ability to germinate.
Prefer and plant melons
In order to get good breeding results from your melons year after year, you should only take seeds from the fruits that meet your breeding requirements. In this way, step by step, you can breed varieties with fewer seeds or plants with particularly strong growth. To ensure that the melons in this country really ripen in the garden or greenhouse, you should put them on the windowsill from April onwards. Please note the following tips:
- Use of rottable plant pots to protect the melon roots
- slowly accustoming the young plants to direct sunlight
- Don't plant the young plants until the nights are frost-free
Tips & Tricks
The young plants of the various types of melons are a real delicacy for snails, so ensure that they are adequately protected from snails after planting.
