About growing melons

Melons are not often thought about when growing fruit in the UK, you can have a lot of success with growing melons especially if you have the right conditions to grow them in. Here you will learn all about how to grow melons in the UK and the rest of the world.

Types of Melons

There are many different types and varieties of melons that you can try growing in your greenhouse. These are:-

When to sow, plant and harvest melons

Here we have provided the key times of when to sow, plant and harvest your melons in the UK. Obviously it all depends on the weather for sowing. They will need a decent temperature to germinate.

Sow	April
Plant	May – June
Harvest	July -September

Choosing the best site for melons

When choosing the best site for growing melons it needs to be somewhere warm like in a polytunnel or a greenhouse. You can grow them outdoors but the melons need to be in a warm, sunny sheltered spot. If you are wanting the best results for your melon plants you should defiantly grow them in a greenhouse or polytunnel.

How to plant melon seeds

To plant your melon seeds you can either use a seed tray or plant them straight into plant pots. I tend to use a seed tray then you can choose the best melon plants and pot them on once they have started growing. First get your seed tray and put a layer of compost in. Then put your melon seeds in the compost spreading evenly around the tray. Once this is done you can cover with another layer of compost.

Your seed tray is now ready for a sprinkle of water. You can now cover your seed tray with a propagator or a layer of cling film. This will keep them warm and moist which will help with germination

How to plant melon plants

Once the melon plants have around 4 leaves on them they are ready to transplant into their own separate plant pots. Plant the melon plants in 9cm plant pots and grow them on till they are a decent size. The melon plants can then be transferred into 30cm plant pots. The plants need to be planted in multipurpose compost, make sure the pots have holes in the bottom so that the water can drain away and not water log the melon plants.

Once they have been potted up in their final pots these can be placed in warm greenhouse or polytunnel.

If you are growing your melons outdoors these need to be grown in a warm sunny spot that is sheltered and humid.

How to care for melon plants

To look after your melon plants it is very similar to cucumber plants. You can get them growing up netting and trellis. They will hook onto the netting but you may need to support the melons as they will be heavy. Keep the melon plants well watered as this will help them swell. You can feed the melon plants one a week with a high potash food.

When the melon plants are growing pinch out the growing tips, this will encourage the sideshoots to grow with the flowers on. When you have quite a few flowers on the plant you can pinch out the side shoots at around two leaves after the flowers. This will encourage the fruit to grow. Make sure that your greenhouse or polytunnel is left open so that insects can help pollinate the melon flowers. If you want to help them use a paintbrush and tickle each melon flower.

If your fruits are on the ground put them on a upside down plant pot or a piece of wood this will stop the melons from rotting.

How to harvest melons

Harvesting melons is the best part – you will know they are ready to pick when they start to let off the melon smell also around the stalk will start to soften.

We hope that you have found these tips and advice on how to grow melons including cantaloupe melon and watermelon useful. Make use of your greenhouse and polytunnel and try growing your own melons this year.

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