My gardening zone is 4b/5a. Melons will be grown in containers because the gardening season here is extremely short (120 days) and I don't trust the weather here to plant them in the ground. I'd like to grow them in 5 gallon buckets; however I was told that with growing melons in containers the normal yield (amount of fruit per plant) will be reduced and the size of the fruit will be smaller. However is this because of the roots not being able to grow deep in the ground because of the restriction of the container due to it having a bottom and the depth being limited a a result. I could always cut out the bottom of the container. Then would this solve the problem (of smaller yields and smaller fruit).
Hi Ameruni. Welcome here to GardenStew! I have grown melon plants in tubs/buckets, but they did not bear fruit, or not any useable fruits. Some things do well in tubs and containers, but I had no luck with melons with them. I have heard of planting them in haybales, and they are supposed to do well that way? I have not yet tried it. http://strawbalegardens.com/ http://bonnieplants.com/library/how-to- ... traw-bale/ Here are two sites showing how to do it. There are lots of sites listed, and videos to show you. I have raised beds, and am working on amending my soil here. I have red clay that is very rocky here in southern Missouri. Manure helps the soil a lot. So will compost when I can get it rotted good. Jump right in and make yourself at home here. Others will have different ideas to try. Row covers are another way to go. It mostly depends on what works for you.
http://www.minnesotafarmguide.com/enter ... f887a.html This is one for up north closer to where you are.
We are zone 5, but we plant the zucchini out in the garden in march or april depending on the weather. This year it was later than normal, but we lay plastic down (with a drip tape or for you I would recommend a soaker hose if you have a whole row, otherwise put a 2 liter bottle with the bottom cut off upside down in the area of the plant so you can hand water. Just shove the neck down into the soil and put a stake in it if you need to to keep it from falling over. Then you fill that when you need to water) and trench it in to warm up the soil for a few days or even a week if we can. then we cut holes in it and plant our plants. As soon as we are done we put wire hoops in the ground over the plants and cover it with floating row cover. It gets the plants started and growing in its own little micro climate before anyone else even gets in the garden. We do the same with cantaloupe, but I am glad we didn't get them in this past week. We will hopefully get them in this week though. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn's Garden ) This is a picture of yesterdays disaster, but it shows one of the rows of zukes we planted a couple weeks ago. Underneath there is a very nice row of good sized zucchini plants. We do the same for canteloupes and watermelon.
Thank you for taking time to post on my thread and for the suggestions. The hay bale thing won't work; the plots aren't mine and anything on them has to be off the plot by the end of the growing season. Getting rid of the hay bales would be difficult, so that won't really work. I can do raised beds, cause I can assemble and take them down easily and simply. I have both vining and bush type melons. With bush types using trellising how many plants can go in a 4' x 8' raised bed without overcrowding? I have the same question for vine type melons. I heard raised beds warm soil faster than soil on the ground. However my growing season is very short, and the weather fluctuates a lot. So should I put black mulch on the top of the soil in the raised beds, or would this overheat the melon plants?
With bush type they won't need a trellis. We plant our melons on black plastic 2 plants every 24". They love the heat, too, so plant in the black plastic.
When you said the 24" spacing per plant are you referring to vining or bush types or would it be 24" spacing per plant for both vine and bush types?
I'm sorry, I do vining varieties. You will need to refer to the seed packet of the variety you are planting for the bush type (which I actually didn't know there were any).
I'd like to do my vining type melons in two 4' x 8' raised beds. I figured out the math, and with trellising, I'd be able to get 8 per raised bed. If I do 8 per raised bed with trellising using a 24" spacing, would I be overcrowding them, or would they be okay?
