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Originally Posted by ac21686
Another year, another failed melon crop! Same story every time. They feel right, look right, even smell right most of the time. Beautiful orange flesh and then...nothing. No sweetness at all. I have harvested at full slip, sometimes a few days before. Doesn't matter! The soil is on the sandier side (which seems like a good thing for melons), but admittedly I've gotten a nutrients breakdown or clay/loam/sand/etc. composition. The weather this year was awful for melons, but even in a hot dry summer like last year's, I don't recall them tasting any better. We straddle the line between 6A and 5B in Western CT. I'm determined to have one decent crop  What melons has anyone grown roughly in this same geographic region/zone and managed to produce a really sweet one? |
I'm in Western MA. With this year's weather, I'm glad I didn't plant melons.
I've tried all kinds of varieties. All have been very sweet in some years. All have been completely non-sweet in some years. Same varieties, just different conditions. From what I've read, the severely limiting of watering about two weeks before harvest, "might" help. The times I've grown melons in hills using black plastic "mulch" have been better than growing on bare soil.
Watermelons seem to be easier, they're never non-sweet.