Monroe Organic Farms is legendary around Denver/Boulder for a handful of reasons, but one major reason local chefs flock to the market… melons. I assure you, if you have not yet tried one from Monroe, then you have yet to experience the juiciness, sweetness, and depth of flavor of a perfectly ripe melon. It's about time (mid-July) when Monroe lays tarps on the ground at the market and covers them with their beautiful fruit - one of my absolute favorite scenes at the market!
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Kyle Monroe is an expert when it comes to growing melons because his family has been growing them on the farm for over four generations. The Greely Wonder muskmelon in particular is their most famous and unique varietal - they brought it back from extinction after seeding and then planting some fifty-year-old seeds they found in the barn!
What’s the difference between a muskmelon and a cantaloupe? Cantaloupe is actually just a variety of muskmelon! But the type of muskmelon that we commonly call cantaloupe has been “designed” for grocery stores because they can be shipped well. The muskmelons that Monroe grows look similar to a cantaloupe, but they are stronger and sweeter in taste. Because of their high sugar content, these varieties of melons are almost never seen on grocery store shelves (the higher the sugar content, the sooner the melon needs to be eaten, so they are difficult to distribute).
Muskmelons were originally grown in Egypt along the Nile River. They love sandy soil, hot days, cool nights and loads of water. Monroe Organic Farms is very sandy, and they often find fossilized mollusks in the rocks there making this farm the ideal growing conditions for these melons. Now, that certainly does not mean growing melons is easy! It’s been a process to work and re-work the farming methodology.
When melon growing has been in your family for over four generations, it goes without saying that you become the ultimate authority on picking out the ideal melon - a question many of us ask ourselves this time of year. Sam Caplan and Kyle Monroe helped us answer this question by breaking down melon selection into a few simple tips:
1. Choose when you want to eat your melon! Today, tomorrow, or in a few days?
Melon tips (Everything but watermelon):
Immediate eating/ or immediate prep: smell the melon where it was pulled from the vine. Is it fragrant? is the rind more orange colored than green or is it totally orange? that's the one.
A few days away: choose a less fragrant melon that has a little more green coloring than orange on the rind. Store it on your counter for quicker ripening or in your fridge for prolonged ripening.
Watermelon Tips:
Look for the "field spot" which is usually a yellow or creamy spot which means the melon was allowed to ripen on the vine
2. Look for sugar scars created by the bees! The more scars, the sweeter the watermelon.
3. Knock on the watermelon! Do you hear a dull sound? Pick another melon as this one won’t have the best texture. Do you hear a nice echoey, resounding knock? That's the perfect texture!
4. For all Melons: Never choose a melon with soft spots! It will be over-ripe and on its way to the compost bin.
Other Notes On Picking/Consuming Melons:
Honey dew is a little more challenging in terms of choosing the perfect one. Push on the rind, if you find resistance and the skin feels waxy, that's a winner! If the skin is super hard, the melon needs to ripen more. green spots usually mean the honeydew is under ripe.
For Muskmelons: Cut them open and let them sit for ten minutes. Like a fine wine, they need to breathe to enhance their flavor. Chilling them is optional.
For Preparation/Storing: The Monroe’s like to freeze any melon in chunks and then grate them to make shaved ice! “There's nothing like sitting down at the table on a hot day with half-a-melon and a spoon.” The Monroe’s take great delight watching their young daughter eat a watermelon with her grandpa, who dedicated his life's work to growing this magical fruit!
Sources (Other than the Monroe family!)
https://www.westword.com/restaurants/monroe-organic-farms-brings-back-greeley-wonder-musk-melon-
https://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/oregon-vegetables/melons-cantaloupe-muskmelon-honeydew-crenshaw-casaba-etc-0
I have written a couple of posts about growing melons, so go to those links for the basics. Here I am going to dive deep into tips for increasing your success by paying attention to the details. I dove so deep I made two pots. part 2 will follow in a couple of weeks.
I wrote a post, Fruit for the Month: July, in my monthly series about small fruits that can be grown sustainably in a mid-Atlantic climate, with melons as the focus. In our climate, July is the month to start harvesting muskmelons (often called cantaloupes), Asian melons, and canary melons. Watermelons are slower to ripen.
Melons love warm, sunny days and need 80-100 days from seed sowing to harvest. For good production, melons need warm weather, along with a steady supply of water. Melon plants also need good air circulation, so leaves and fruit can dry fairly quickly after dew or rainfall. To help prevent the spread of diseases, rotate crops and avoid growing them where other cucurbits were planted in the previous year or two.
Melons thrive in well-drained soil, sandy loam, or in clay soils that have been good levels of organic matter, so long as they get plenty of sunshine and warmth. Soil pH should be 6-7 for healthy melons and good yields. Encourage drought-resilient crops by using drip irrigation, so that roots grow deep. Look for resistance to diseases you know to be a problem in your area.
They have no frost tolerance. Vines can sprawl and cover a 4’ (1.2 m) bed, or fill even a 7’ (2.13 m) row when grown on the flat, and for a longer harvest from each planting, do not crowd them.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of Melon Seed Supplier. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
Melon seed specs are the same as cucumbers for size and weight: seeds/oz, 36 seeds/gm. 0.5oz sows 100′, 6 oz/’ at 6 seeds/ft. (100 seeds, or 11gm/m at 2.5 cm spacing.). Melon yields will be affected by irrigation during fruit development, but not by watering levels during vegetative or flowering stages. Adequate water is especially important in the seedling stage and during fruiting. Marketable yields of muskmelons can be 7,000-10,000 fruits per acre (17,500-25,000 per hectare) when grown on plastic mulch, and down to half that on bare ground. Most melon plants will yield 3 or 4 good melons.
Jeff McCormack of Saving Our Seeds distinguishes 8 types of Cucumis melon:
Of these types, we mostly grow muskmelons. Externally, they turn beige and slip from the vine when ripe. They have a yellowish-buff skin with a raised netting, and sometimes lengthwise sutures (ribbing). They have soft sweet orange flesh, with a complex sweet aromatic flavor, and the 3–7lbs (1.5–3kg) fruits take 75-84 days to mature. They are sometimes divided into two types: Eastern varieties are sutured (scalloped in shape) and can have a very short shelf life, while Western ones are typically not sutured but are netted (covered with a corky mesh of lines), and they will usually hold for two weeks after harvest. I see many netted and scalloped melons, so I don’t use this classification.
Kansas (90d from transplanting) is an heirloom muskmelon with excellent flavor, fine texture and enough sturdiness to stand up to humid weather and variable rainfall. The 4lb (1.8 kg), oval fruits are sutured and moderately netted. They are hardy, productive, with good resistance to sap beetles that can destroy fruit of other varieties. They ripen almost all the way out to the rind (not much waste!). Pick these at full slip, and be sure to inhale the aroma at the stem end, as you carry them to the table.
Pike (85d) (see photo at top of the post) was bred for growing in unirrigated clay soil. It is vigorous, high-yielding, disease-resistant and (depending on irrigation) it produces 3-7lb (1.4-3.1 kg) fruits with great flavor. We have also had success with Edisto 47 (88d OP) about 6-7″ (15-17 cm) in diameter. With resistance to ALS, PM, and DM, it exceeds the disease resistance of many hybrids. Hales Best has also done well here. For Downy mildew resistance, tolerance to cucumber beetles, and great flavor, grow Trifecta from Commonwealth Seeds and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.
The University of Kentucky has a publication on specialty melons.
Fastest to produce a crop are the 65-day Asian melons such as Torpedo (replaced Sun Jewel), or Early Silver Line. A good type for people with short growing seasons, provided you can make a warm spot for them. These 1-2lb (0.5-1kg) melons have refreshing crisp white flesh and are pleasantly sweet without over-doing it. The long oval fruits average 7″ x 3 1/2″ and are pale yellow with shallow white sutures (“seams”). Some people disparage them as “cucumber melons,” but their good points are earliness, tolerance of chilly weather, being easy to grow and having a pleasant flavor. They ripen to a more buttery yellow and slip off the vine when ripe. Plants are resistant to downy and powdery mildews, and can be very productive. We buy seed from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Galia tropical melons have green flesh, yellow-tan skins and a round shape.
I wrote a post for Mother Earth News Organic Gardening Blog about personal size melons, something we tried for a couple of years. These “individual serving” melons weigh about 2-2.5 lbs (1 kg) each, compared to standard cantaloupes at 3-6lbs (1.5-2.5kg) each. To serve, just cut in half and scoop out the seeds. Add ice cream if you like. We tried Tasty Bites (they top out at 3lbs/1.4kg) and Sugar Cube 2–2 1/2 lb (1kg). The advantage of having a smaller fruit was not more than the disadvantage of harvesting smaller fruits for us.
More and earlier success comes with sowing melon seeds indoors, where the right temperatures can happen earlier in the year. Melons are a bit finicky in their youth, but given a strong start, they can do very well. Melons need slightly warmer temperatures than cucumbers. The seeds take 8.4 days to emerge at 68°F (20°C), 4 days at 77°F (25°C), and 3.1 days at 86°F (30°C).
Cucurbits are not very easily transplanted, so choose a method that minimizes root damage, such as soil blocks, Winstrip trays or 2” (5 cm) deep cell flats that are easy to eject plants from. Sow 2-3 seeds per cell 0.5” (1 cm) deep.
Sow 3-4 weeks before you intend to plant out: we sow our first melons 4/15 to transplant with hoops and rowcover 5/6, which is a week after our last frost date. Temperatures below 45°F (7°C) can stunt growth. If the spring is cold, just wait it out. Melons will do OK with fluctuating temperatures, provided they are not too cold.
After germination, the temperature should be reduced to 75°F (24°C). We always ensure our melons get a spot in the greenhouse with very good light and no drafts.
Keep the soil moist and when seedlings have reached 2” (5cm) in height, single them (thin to one plant per cell) by cutting off weak seedlings at soil level, leaving one strong seedling per pot or cell. Keep temperature above 70°F (21°C) during the day and 60°F (16°C) at night.
Once the first true leaves appear, lower the temperature to 65°F (18°C) and reduce watering a little. Cucurbit seedlings are sometimes damaged by foliar sprays, especially ones including soaps, so avoid killing by mistaken kindness.
Harden off the plants for a week, by reducing water, before you set them into the garden. Set them outside in a shady area on warm days, gradually increasing the time outside each day from one hour to two hours, to three, and so on. Alternatively, use shadecloth and increase the sun exposure by an hour a day.
If you want a faster harvest than you’d get from direct sowing, but you don’t want to do transplants, you can chit (pre-sprout) the seed. Put the seed on damp paper towels, roll them up and put the bundles in plastic bags loosely closed, or plastic sandwich boxes, not sealed. Keep at 70-85°F (21-29°C). Check twice a day (this also introduces fresh air to the seeds), and sow before the root reaches the length of the seed. Seeds which are already sprouting will not need more watering after sowing until the seedlings emerge, unless the soil is dry as dust.
Stephen Albert writes the very informative Harvest to Table website, which includes step-by-step details on pre-sprouting melon (and other) seeds. It takes only a few days, and gets the tiny seedling through the tough seed coat. How to Plant and Grow Melons
For sowing in open ground wait until the soil temperatures is 59°F (15°C), the minimum to germinate melon seeds. We make a furrow 0.5-0.75” (1.3-1.8cm) deep, water the furrow if the soil is dry, put one seed every 6” (15 cm), pull the soil back over the seeds and tamp down. Growers commonly space seeds at 2” (5cm), but using the wider spacing gives us no problems, and uses less seed. We cover all our early cucurbit sowings with rowcover until the plants start to flower (about a month) as we have many pests and diseases. Later sowings get ProtekNet insect netting rather than rowcover. When the plants start to flower, we remove the covers, hoe and thin to 18-24” (45-60 cm). Melons can use 7.5-15 ft2 (0.7-1.4 m2) each on plastic mulch, and double that space on bare ground. Melon rows are typically up to 6-10’ (2-3 m) apart.
It is possible to sow cucurbits through plastic mulch by jabbing holes in the plastic and popping the seeds in. This method leads to earlier harvests, as the mulch warms the soil, and there will be no weeds.
For a main crop, we direct sow 5/25 and 6/25. Maximum germination temperature is 100°F (38°C).
Melons are admittedly delicate to transplant. Wait for the right conditions and take great care when handling the plants.
Check your local weather forecast to ensure that your melon plants will not be subjected to chilly, windy conditions when they are newly transplanted. Warm overcast conditions late in the day are best for transplanting, and rowcover (preferably on hoops to reduce abrasion) can be used to provide warmer and less breezy conditions.
Before starting transplanting, check the soil temperature: the soil should be at least 70°F (21°C) for melon survival. Melon plants exposed to temperatures cooler than recommended might not set fruit later on. One way to speed up soil warming is to cover the area with black plastic mulch for 1-3 weeks prior. Cut an x-shaped slit where for each plant and hold the edges of the plastic down with rocks. We space our melons at 2’ (60cm) apart in the row, with rows 6’ (2m) apart.
To help reduce transplant shock, water the flat (or pots) well the day before and again one hour before transplanting. Avoid disturbing the roots when transplanting. Cucurbit transplants are often leggy, and they should be planted so that the entire stem up to the base of the leaves is below soil level, otherwise the fragile stem is liable to get broken. The stems will do better protected in the ground. Water the soil thoroughly. If you are not using plastic mulch, hoe as needed for a few weeks, and wait until hot weather before spreading organic mulch (straw, spoiled hay or dry tree leaves), as this keeps the soil cool, and as I stressed already, melons like heat. Depending on soil fertility, you may want to add fish emulsion to encourage growth.
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