Growing Melons On Our Allotment In UK

[@DuncanRobinson-z2j]

Petit Gris De Rennes is fairly easy to grow and an early cropper. It is only a small melon, but good flavour. I live near Rochdale in Greater Manchester and grow melons in an unheated greenhouse on my allotment. This year was a crop failure for melons, I think due to the wet, cool and cloudy summer, you have to be careful of overwatering and roor rot with melons. I did grow watermelons one year from grafted plants I bought, but struggle to grow from seed in my area. I have also grown melons in a large cold frame successfully also some years. They do like manure few inches under the surface with top soil capping the manure. I also put yellow sulphur powder around where the stem goes into the ground to repel water from the stem and roots immediately near the stem, which is an old trick on 'The Victorian Kitchen Garden' BBC programme from the 1980's. A warm spring and hot summer are the best years to guarantee success with melons I have found. I once grew an enormous melon 'Uzbek Sweetness' which was a rugby ball oval shaped melon with a dark green skin and sweet, white flesh. That was in a year with a very warm spring and hot summer.

[@michelleadams2997]

Woah, melon envy, they look fantastic

[@TheWickerShireProject]

Thank you for this video. It is very special to me. I'm growing melons hard core in 7a Central Tennessee USA. I have chosen 12 varieties to learn on and will vlog my results. We are in a crazy humid state and I expect full war on powdery mildew this year. I have an armament of techniques to combat the impending doom to come. We will be growing in Large grow Bags using a trellis systems and incorporating a massive tarp to discourage all nasty bugs that love soil. The tarp will heat up here preventing snails, slugs, vine borers and a few other unknown entities as i'm new to my Area ( our 3rd year here ). I have selected a safe farm that uses only medication as needed on a 600 acre property wild grass fed. The manure will be the safest we can allocate. Other farms told us they use grazon, herbicides, pesticides as they are on the commercial end of production. Heart breaking as a grower and that manure is trash. We've mixed up and inoculated all our compost mixing up some basic super soil. Being poor we chose a solar drip irrigation system as bags dry fast in the sweltering heat here. I've source healthy rich microrhizome leaf mold to aid us in breaking down nutriment from the local forest to work with our native microbes and help boost soil health. I never grow Plants ( it's a by-product ) We are soil tenders/soil babysitters. My hopes are we do well. My expectations are low. If anything grows we will be blessed! 🥰

[@andrewramsey7405]

Spider mites hate moisture, greenhouses can dry out which is a breeding ground for spider mites, In summer regularly spray all over the insides of the greenhouse using a hose pipe, keeps humidity up which will help.

[@myrustygarden]

😂😂 nice melons Helen. Sadly mine were all mice food 🤦🏼‍♀️. Yes but Jamie is a tomato addict 🤫. But all said and done I will defo try again next year. Happy growing and have a lovely week, Ali 🇨🇦

[@oddsocksgrowing]

Why thank you 😊🤣🤣🤣. Yes he is addicted to tomato growing 🤣. But im left with the processing 😭. 💜

[@valeriepritchard677]

Grew melba in 30 litre buckets with them trained in a spiral on tripod of canes. Just eaten the last of them, at least two per plant,Norfolk UK

[@oddsocksgrowing]

Good going. 😊.

[@janetprince5147]

Minnesota midget and watermelon (forgot what variety) my water melon plants died before the melons could ripen, red spider mites also by the look of yours. The Minnesota midgets are the juiciest sweetest thing I've ever eaten, and so prolific, I've still got 6 melons left in the greenhouse, fingers crossed they will ripen

[@oddsocksgrowing]

You did do well then. Shame about the water melons though. But there's always next year . Minnesota midget is one I'd like to try next year 💜

[@juliewhite2688]

I grew Alvaro F1, this was my first year on my allotment and a first for growing melon. I had 4 plants and had 8 melons I still have 2 for picking tomorrow and there are 4 more but leaves are starting to die so I’m not sure if the plant will last long enough for the remainder to ripen. I’m from Kent.

[@oddsocksgrowing]

You've done excellent for getting that many 👍. Just take each year as it comes. You never know how our summers are going to be