Growing tasty cantaloupes. Suggestions?

MikeA57 · Jul 7, 2012

This is the first year I've put in a garden. As a kid I got burned out on working in my Dad's garden but now I'm seeing the value in it. And, I'm actually having fun doing it! One thing that gets me though is that my cantaloupes either rot on the vine before they seem to be ready to pick, or if I do pick them they are very juicy but tasteless.

My tomatoes are doing great and taste wonderful. We also had bumper crops of squash, radishes and green beans. And, we have had a good number of cantaloupes. The tomatoes were experiencing bloom rot so I put lime around them and while I was at it I put some around the cantaloupes too. I figured it couldn't hurt. The drought seems to have hurt everything except the tomatoes. Once the cantaloupes got to the point of really growing, I noticed that the vines dried out completely, like the fruit was just sucking all the moisture out of the vines. So, can anyone point me in the direction of good tasty cantaloupes?

Oh yeah, and once they are picked do they continue to ripen and get sweeter or not? I've heard conflicting reports on that.

Mike

joshuabardwell · Jul 7, 2012

Alton Brown says melons do not ripen after picking.

randy41 · Jul 8, 2012

muskmelons ripen but don't get any sweeter after picking. watermelons don't ripen at all after being picked. i grow ambrosia and athena melons and they are both very sweet. i pick them when they seperate easily from the vine and they smell sweet. they need water when growing and then are sweetest if not irrigated for the last week or so before picking. they also need insect pollination.

Bigfoot62 · Jul 8, 2012

MikeA57 said:
. . . The drought seems to have hurt everything except the tomatoes. Once the cantaloupes got to the point of really growing, I noticed that the vines dried out completely, like the fruit was just sucking all the moisture out of the vines. . .

You just need a few thundershowers. Problem is, you can "order" those on demand. We're having the same problem here.

MikeA57 · Jul 11, 2012

Bigfoot62 said:
You just need a few thundershowers. Problem is, you can "order" those on demand. We're having the same problem here.

Well, we're getting those now. All week long. And when I picked them last night I got one melon that I think will be a good one. The other 6-7 had either stunted in their growth and rotted from the inside, or split open. Which means that I didn't think they were ready but they were and when we got the rain they just absorbed more moisture and couldn't hold it (that's my un-edu-ma-cated guess anyway).

Oh, and I had one that the crickets had gotten into. I swear, if I could catch those hoppin little buggers, I could make a killing off of them with the fishermen. They're big fat black crickets and they've had a heyday with my tomatoes and cantaloupes!