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In spirit of #MamaSaidEatYourFruitAndVeggies I humbly offer you run down of our fall and spring melon production...However, it rained too much this week so we’re behind. Putting up borders Tuesday:
Prior to putting up beds we prepare our soil similar to lettuce, but melons require about 1/2 the Phosphate that #lettuce does.
The following pics and video are from last year...Preshaping and planting with the same shaper:
After shaping and planting our early spring melons(February plantings) we lay plastic over the mid-bed trench to protect seedlings from front, and accelerate growth. It’s like a mini temporary hot house.
After the plants have a few leaves on and the weather warms up a bit, we remove the plastic and cultivate:
Up close cultivation, if you were a melon vine:
Then we sidedress fertilizer normally 100u/acre of UN-32, and layby Trifluralin herbicide before watering.
A couple of weeks later we’ve put bees on for pollination and already have our crown set of melons set(normally 300-400 cartons per acre of size 9 melons):
And a couple of weeks after that, we have all of our melons set(thanks 
) and we’re focusing on controlling irrigation water to keep bed tops dry until harvest...
) and we’re focusing on controlling irrigation water to keep bed tops dry until harvest...
And before long, it’s harvest time...
Harvest for cartons...
Harvest for processing...
We grow watermelon, honeydew and other specialty melons some years, but almost always grow Hami’s and cantaloupe every spring and fall. Thanks for following along, and thanks for eating melons!
