Whatever Became of Those Melons?

Earlier this year, I presented melons as one of the new crops we would be experimenting with this season.  Some of you who live nearby have noticed these sizing up on a large trellis in our backyard recently so I thought I would update you all on the progress this week.  

There is some good news and some bad news to share.  The good news is that a couple of melons have ripened up fully and they have been spectacular!  This has been enough motivation for us to grow them again I think.   The bad news is that there will likely not be enough for all of our farm members this year.  Yields were really not what we had hoped for and that is with a fair bit of babying too.  At the rate this growing season seems to be coming to an end, we may be forced to harvest the remaining fruit prematurely.

So the next time I grow these cantaloupes, I guess we will need to find them some space in our high tunnel.  This will hopefully give them the heat they need to thrive.  I was thankful that we had such a hot dry summer for our melon experiment, because if they can't produce well outdoors in a year like this, it is clear that greenhouse conditions are really what they need to be a viable crop for us.  The hard part will be deciding which crop to take out of the high tunnel to make space for the melons.  That is prime real estate!