Growing melons in the UK

I've attempted growing canteloup melons in my greenhouse over the past few years....and failed miserably with no fruit setting at all....except for this year! They are not fully developed yet but I have two which are about tennis ball sized and have fingers crossed. Any clues as to what I should do to maximise my chances of a proper melon?? Anyone found anything else is growing particularly well this year?

Tags: melon

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Permalink Reply by hillwards on August 19, 2010 at 8:59

We're growing gallia-style melons in our greenhouse for the first time this year, and have several fruits that are a bit bigger than grapefruit size and starting to show the skin patterns that I would expect on a gallia. We read that you should hang each fruit in a net tied up to something so that the weight doesn't break the stalk so we'll look at doing something similar soon...

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Wiebe on August 19, 2010 at 11:06

Søren of In the Toads Garden blog is breeding his own melons specially for northern climates. He's already got a melon that does pretty well outdoors in Copenhagen. It's still a work in progress, so consider it a little experimental, but I think he would share seeds with you if you want to give it a try.

I see his website is down right now, but I think if you try in a few days it will be up again. In the meantime, you can also look at the Google cache of the posts:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fTGFVnKTjzYJ:t...

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Permalink Reply by Jan Willetts on August 20, 2010 at 0:20

I would love to try melons again, my only attempt so far was a failure as I planted them outside and they clearly need to be protected. I was just reading Amateur Gardening mag and there is an article on page 13 this week by Sarah Wain, head gardener at West Dean Gardens, Sussex about melons. They grow "Emir F1" from Mr Fothergills seeds as its specially bred for cooler climates. There is a picture of them in little nets in their greenhouse, the lateral stems are trained on wires stretched along the greenhouse; they look about the size of grapefruit too so you must be getting it right!