Winter Melon Harvest

It's time to take all of the Winter Melons off the vine. The vines have been fading the last few weeks.

See the dried and shriveled leaves in the pictures to the right.

The vines have been like that for several weeks, but I delayed picking the melons in the hope that the plants would be able to recover. The evening temperatures have been in the 40 to 50 degree range and the Sun only shines on this part of the garden in the morning. Not the best weather for growing Winter Melons.

This year I strung one of the vinest between the branches of a tree to see if the tree could support some melons.

Sure enough, I was able to get two melons to grow. Next year, I will try to see if I can get the vines to wrap around the tree and get a second

layer of melons to grow.

This year, my harvest was 9 large melons, 7 medium sized melons, and 4 small melons. I had picked around 10 melons of various sizes (mostly small to medium) throughout the Summer and early Fall to give away or to eat. So these 20 melons represent the last crop.

Next year, I want to grow fewer vines to see if I can increase my yield. This year, I grew 15 plants and the vines ended up competing for sun. I think, I will try 8 plants next time.