How do you grow cantalope that are sweet?

I grew beautiful cantalope plants-no bugs-watered regularly, this summer and the fruit was growing steadily. I had 8 melons total. I read somewhere to stop watering them about 2 wks before you pick them. Well, a few days after withholding water they were ripe! I was so disappointed when I anxiously took my first bite and it was completely tasteless. Does anybody have advise for me before I give up on cantalopes? Thanks a bunch.

The things that bring sweetness to melons are: [1] Good soil and healthy plants beyond ripening; [2] Warm weather [3] No 4 inch rains near ripening [4] And most important is variety perhaps. You might try Sugar Queen [Willhite Seed] and Burpee Early Hybrid Crenshaw. When these are healthy to the end, they are superb for me.

Indy - are you familiar with Super Dew?

Not familiar with Super Dew. I have grown Rocky Sweet which is greenish flesh and very sweet.

Thanks Indy. I will order the seeds you suggested in the spring and try again!

I was watching this thread to see whether there were any ideas because I had the same situation this year. Only one of my melons was sweet, and that was a Précoce du Roc. Later melons of the same variety had no taste, nor did my Noire des Carmes, Delice du Table, or Petit Gris de Rennes. All of those are supposed to be very sweet but they didn't come up that way in my garden. My watermelons, on the other hand, were fine.

Long ago I read that adding trace minerals helped give flavor to melons. I think the ones mentioned were boron and magnesium. Whichever they were, applying very small amounts of Borax and epsom salts seemed to make a difference when I tried it. Maybe it's time for another application.

I grew this year:
Crenshaw Lily..a fantastic melon
Galia Arava..sometimes super sweet, sometimes tastes like dirt if I over water
Canary Spanish Sugar Nut...always fantastic, super taste, let them get completely ripe on the vine for best taste
Honeydew Honey Pearl...sweet like honey but no flavor
Honeydew Cool Green...fantastic, very large melons, super taste, be sure there is no green on the rind when you pick for best flavor.
Ananas San Juan.. doesn't taste good if watered within a week of picking, others liked it better than I did.
Cantaloupe Heart of Gold...good melon if one doesn't overwater, the rind is still greenish when ripe and it doesn't keep after picking.

I grew Honeydew Superdew last year, it was fantastic for me but I couldn't find the seeds this year.
Hee is Crenshaw Lily, the flavor is sweet and spicy

I tried Sugar Nut and Lily last year. Sugar Nut refused to germinate, Lily only set one fruit, which never got ripe because of bacterial wilt hitting the vine.

We just had 4 inches of rain, so I'm expecting soggy melons. If they ever ripen at all this year.

Calalily, maybe it was the rain, then. We've had long periods of drought and then three or four inches of rain all at once - and then hot and dry again followed by a deluge. I wonder what you do about that if you want sweet melons!

We grow in raised beds(modified, sides are held up by thick mulch because we have so many beds). In summer if there is a storm at sea, we can get lots of rain and the raised beds drain much faster than flat ground. We needed to irrigate yesterday so I picked all the melons that were ripe before turning the valve. I have a crenshaw that is almost ripe and left that one. I'll let you know how the flavor is when it's ripe.
Some of my vines were looking bad due to the wind and little green caterpillars but now they're putting on new growth, flowering and setting more fruit. This summer has been hotter and drier than usual, we've been in the mid to upper 90's for almost three months now and have hit 100 two or three times (unusual for this area, the Gulf and the wind usually keeps the temps lower). I think the canary melons and the crenshaws like the heat though.
Here is a photo taken in July of the melons in the raised planting areas, I think you can see the raised part. We're in the process of installing a new irrigation system. The hose going to the post was to a sprinkler.

We had our usual dry summer, so hubby watered daily. Our cantaloupes were very sweet. Some were Charentais and others were mystery melons :) Of the two, I think the mystery melons were the sweetest - they grew amongst the sweet potato vines which made finding them a challenge. Wish I knew what they were (sigh)

You going to save the seeds?

I saved the seeds from that one Précoce du Roc that was sweet. Not sure if that will help next year but I figured it was worth a try. Honeybee, were the mystery melons like any you'd grown before? If you don't grow hybrids they have to be some variety that you planted last year! If you do hybrids, though, they may not come true if you plant seeds from them.

Greenhouse_gal, if I plant seeds from hybrids and get a melon I like (would this be F2 generation?), then if I save seeds from those, what happens?
I saved seeds from a galia melon, grew out about 50 plants and got some really good melons. I'd like to save the seeds from those. I have lots of room to experiment. I know how to hand pollinate and bag the flower till fruit sets.

Well, it's supposed to rain again the next 3 days, so I picked my Superdew. It was ripe, by all indicators, but not very sweet.

All my hopes for melons are now invested in the Charentais.

Calla your saved seeds from the hybrid are the F2 and the ones you are saving from this year are the F3, etc. From what I've read, you'll need to save seeds from several of your best, chosen for flavor, earliness, size or whatever trait(s) you're looking for. If you save from 3 melons, keep those separate and grow some from each. Keep selecting your winners until you have stable and predictable crop from them. Until they stabilize, they should keep segregating genetically for different traits and at some point you may want to cross one line with another. You're lucky to have the space to play. Someday maybe we'll all be clamoring for Calla's Gallias.

Did you notice any differences at all with the 50 you grew out this year? If not, maybe they're already stabilized. There have been several cases where the F1 was stable in tomatoes so I suppose it's possible in other things as well.

A couple years ago I had a watermelon volunteer that was extra good in all respects [first time ever for a volunteer.] It was very likely from a hybrid so it would be an F2. I raised a plant from it which produced a very large meon...it was inferior in taste at F3. That kind of discourages further testing!

Yeah that is discouraging. I figure it's like buying a lottery ticket with somewhat better odds. There's probably a lot more glory than $ in it though. A hundred years ago it was somewhat common for an individual to get a seed company interested in promoting/buying a good variety. Now they've all got professionals on the payroll and they want to patent things.

LTilton - No, I'm not going to save the seeds. I would have to sow lots of the collected seeds to maybe get a duplicate, and I really don't have the room for such experiments. The squash family can vary greatly from year-to-year with seeds from volunteers. I was pleasantly surprised that these melons tasted so wonderfully sweet. I didn't sow these seeds, they must have come from the compost mulch I put around the sweet potato vines. Who knows, maybe there will be some good melons from the same compost mulch source next year. That's if the Cardinal birds leave any - they love digging into the compost bin for melon seeds. I leave off the top so they can feast their little hearts-out :)

greenhouse_gal - My neighbors give me their "kitchen scraps" for my compost bin - which includes seeds from various sources. They don't have vegetable gardens of their own, but I share my bounty with them.

The galias were pretty uniform in shape, size and taste. The honeydew seeds were not, there was a lot of variation but a few of the melons were better than the original.
Just for kicks, I saved seeds from "Sugar Bowl" watermelon because I had the space to grow them. I got so many different kinds of melons, all shapes, colors and sizes. Some were very good. I won't save seed from any of them, but it was fun growing them.

I really like volunteers just for that reason. You never know what you're going to get if they're from hybrids. Once I ended up with a purple tomato, but it looked so weird that I didn't taste it.

I've had some fun with volunteers this year, too. The melons were certainly a "hit" but now the volunteer tomatoes are beginning to ripen and believe it or not - most of them taste just like the ones from the supermarket! :( The exception were the "cherry type." They were as sweet as sugar - I assume they were from the "Sweet Baby Girl" plants I grew last year. I originally chose this type because I call my little dog, Chloe "Sweet Baby Girl" - turns out, she doesn't like tomatoes (giggle)

I collected seed from melons we bought at the markets this year...for cantlopes and watermelons.

Usually I broadcast the seed in a big bed. Done this for a few years and some years are good other years not so.

We use horsemanure on the garden.

Im marking my sow date for 2010 for watermelons and cantalopes for May 23!

Many of the cantaloupes sold in markets are hybrids, so you could get some odd melons.

Yep, been there done that! LOL! Weird hides too, but some were very good!

Our best melons this summer grew amongst the sweet potatoes. They were volunteers from the compost.

Isnt that the way! Something about those volunteers in the compost pile.. they grow awesome!

I had a pumpkin this year that I swear came from seed of pumpkins I fed the chickens two years ago and when I cleaned the poop from the coop from the winter this spring, it grew from that pile and man did it put out the punkins.. I could have never got it to grow if I planned planted it! It sprouted from the manure that I put on a flowerbed!

I got one last honeydew just before the freeze hit, but it was totally tasteless - didn't get enough sun and heat.

Makes me think the real key to growing good melons is living in a place where they have summer every year.

Well, starting them earlier to avoid the frost and shorter days does help. This summer.. hmmm whaaaat summer? We dint have one!

The melons seem to like well fertilized but good drained soil, but get plenty of timely rains too.

Some of my best melons, pumpkins or cantalopes been volunteers and started in the compost pile!

We use horse and chicken doo when ever possible. Helps to raise both! Our soil here onthe ranch is pooooor and humusless. We add woodchips occassionally to pump up the mater in the sand we got.

If you have ever cut a vine to a melon, especially a pumpkin vine, the darned things are like hoses. They store water and they take that moisture to maturity. If the melons dont get ample water or fertilizer and heat units.. well there ya go... poor tasting slow to mature fruits!

Sometimes if they get too much water they're bland, though. I think that's what happened to mine. I only had one good melon all summer; the rest were tasteless - even others off the same plant.

Hard to turn the rain off.

Tell me about it! Farmers I know say that drought's much easier to deal with than an overabundance of rain!

Water I know!.. I live on a flood plain and a bog! We learn to deal with it. Right about now I am almost wishing winter was here, least then the ground would be frozen and not sloshy, but well...its like my hubs pappy would always say, wish in one hand and poop in the other. Well, not exactly his words as this is a family channel, but you get the drift!

Well, I need to prepare the cantalope and watermelon seeds I saved. Get them out of the tissue paper I dried them in and store them.

I will take like the cantalope seed and strain the "mush" out of them and run cold water through the seeds to seperate them, then put them in a paper towel, fold the towel over to get the soggy out and let the little packet air dry.

I always somehow manage to get gnats hovering over them until they are dry no less in the house.. grrrrrr.....so occassionally I will take a fly spray on the papertowels. Once dry, no bugs...but Jeez,m how the critters come in is anyones guess....more than likely with the fresh melon and 2 gnats goes into more!

Does any one have a better way?

I put the cantaloupe or watermelon seeds in a cup along with some of the "mush" and juice. I let them ferment for three or four days, dump them into a strainer, rinse with cold water, dry on paper towels then store in jars with a packet of silica gel. No sticky seeds, no mold.

Hmmm, I just dry my seeds without fermenting them. The only seeds I ferment are tomatoes.

I don't save melon seeds because I don't want the crosses.

Good points!

I ferment several different seeds. The natives down here that save seed (or their parents used to) tell about hanging different fruits in old cotton socks to rot then dry. They would then pick out the seeds to plant (after several months, not while still rotting). They did it with melons, tomatoes, peppers, squash.....lots of things.

Peppers for fermentation? Weird! I just pluck the lil boogers off the hull in the bells and put them on a towel to dry.

Bout the only one I ferment is the maters!