Thursday, September 30

So was it a melon?

Well the answer is yes and ... no! We cut into the mystery object mentioned in my last post and this is what we found...
The object WAS a melon but when we tasted it - it tasted of nothing - not sweet and juicy like the ones grown in the greenhouse. It had changed from the really dark green colour and was fairly soft and looked quite juicy but obviously hadn't ripened properly. The fruit was found hidden amongst the squash plants so it wouldn't have benefitted from the limited amount of sunshine that we had over 'summer'. Maybe this meant that the fruit hadn't sweetened. Anyway next year we are going to have another try at growing melons outdoors this time with a bit more tender loving care as at least we now know we can get fruit to develop even during the abyssmal summer that is now just a memory!

11 comments:

  1. That's a shame, can melons really ripen outside in this country? I know they can grow in cold frames or a greenhouse. Hope you have better luck next year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark this down as a success - melon outside this far north? So maybe there is hope for my dreams of apricots in north west Cumbria!

    You got healthy growth and size, flavour will come next year, well done!

    ReplyDelete
  3. like you say, always next year :D do you have to have a greenhouse for melons? any sweet outdoor varieties you can recommend, I think some of them are tasteless.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Damo - we'll try again next year and hope for a better summer to see.

    Hi BW - We are also going to give our indoor melons a bit more attention next year to try and get larger ones - is your apricot outside. We have a nectarine in a tub which was newly planted this year - we intend to take in inside over winter.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Craig.
    The other plant was in the greenhouse and produced 3 small but really delicious fruit. It was Noir des Carnes - see photos on previous post

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a shame it didn't ripen, but I think you can count it as a success seeing as you got it to this stage outdoors, and there's always next year to improve on this.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Jo
    We always need a challenge don't we? And this one was ignored - forgotten about and got to this stage on its own so who knows with a bit of help ...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi GLA, no apricots yet, just plans (which you know is a fatal four-letter word at Bag End).

    I have a couple of potential locations where they might get enough sun and have shelter, on "The List" for next Spring!

    ReplyDelete
  9. So melons outdoors too...I think I may experiment a little more with them next year then and see what happens..I have a strange fruit on my plot at the minute...I will hopefully get some pictures and post about it tomorrow!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. too bad it didn't get sweet enough, but it does look very tasty.
    Good luck for next year

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.