I think we grew melon seedlings in container garden - help!

I really don't know much about gardening, but we have had some success with our container on our roof terrace in Tokyo.

My daughter decided to plant some melon seeds in one of the planter boxes. She washed them and put them in the soil. I really didn't think that they would come up, but last years vines started coming back and so the planters got regularly watered.

Small shoots started coming up and now there are a lot of very sturdy small plants. Originally I thought it was the morning glory that had been planted there last year - but from what I can tell from looking online they are melon seedlings.


We have a number of easy vegetables, herbs and flowers in fairly large planters - but I have never grown melons.

At the moment there is a net for vines to grow up, but I don't think it would be strong enough to support melons. I am also wondering if we should thin out the seedlings, and put them into more pots.

My daughter is thrilled that the seeds have sprouted, so it would be amazing if we could actually grow some melons.

The planters. The possible melons are at the front of the planter in the left (goya i planted from seedlings are against the window). The other planters have morning glory.

Also the weather now in Tokyo is pretty sunny and we are about to head into the rainy season, which is warm and very moist - very good for growing. The planters are in the direct sun from midday onwards.

I would say you need to thin them out to one or two in that size box. Is there room for them to trail outside the box? Depending on the melon and size, I would say it is likely that netting is not strong enough.

Your garden sounds wonderful. Can you send pictures that show more of it?

Thankyou so much for the reply:)

They are melons for sure then?

I couldn't even remember what melon my daughter got the seeds from, but from her description it was a smooth skinned kind of cantaloupe (that's actually not that common here).

We have space on the roof, but not really enough to let melon vines spread out... And I need the space to put up a big kids pool near there in summer.

The main purpose of those planters there is to get a "green curtain" over the windows for summer for natural cooling. I guess I could leave a couple of meon vines in there for that purpose (the leaves look like they will grow quite large) and make a separate container (containers) with a stronger trellis support to try and actually grow melons.

The roof is 4 stories up, so I can't imagine bees will help will pollination, so I guess the only fruit we might get is from hand pollination.

My garden is a bit of a mish-mash with no real planning at all, but we have had fun trying things out and actually being able to eat things out of our garden, especially as we are in the middle of the city.