Vegetable Gardening (51 page)

‘Suyo Long':
This unusual Oriental-type slicing cucumber is burpless, mostly seedless, and produces 15-inch fruits. It matures in 61 days.

‘Sweet Success':
This AAS winner is a seedless, parthenocarpic slicing variety with slender, 14-inch-long fruits that have tender skin and good disease resistance. It matures in 54 days.

‘Tasty Jade':
This is a vigorous-growing hybrid bush Oriental cucumber that produces thin-skinned, 11-inch-long ribbed, parthenocarpic fruits. This good greenhouse variety matures in 54 days.

Melons: The Sweet, Juicy Vining Plant

Compared to cucumbers with their various sexual combinations and vine lengths, melons are, well, easy. They all have separate male and female flowers on each plant (which categorizes them as
monoecious
), and they all need about 6 to 8 feet of space to vine. Many different types of melons with many unique flavors are available. A number of melons can be harvested on the unripe side and left to mature off the vine while still producing their sweet flavor. (See the later section "Harvesting your vining crop" for more on harvesting melons.) In the following sections, I describe several kinds of melons and share some of my favorite melon varieties.

Distinguishing different types of melons

Most gardeners are familiar with the two most popular types of melons: muskmelons (also known as cantaloupes) and watermelons. But more and more exotic melon types continue to show up in produce markets and seed catalogs. These exotic types include crenshaw, honeydew, and charentais. They're similar to muskmelons, but they offer a tropical, juicy flavor. Watermelons come in the traditional "let's have a picnic" oblong shape as well as the more compact, round shape (also called an icebox shape). Yellow-fleshed and seedless watermelon varieties also are available. Most muskmelons tend to weigh between 2 and 5 pounds, but watermelons can run from 8 pounds to between 20 and 30 pounds. And you thought all melons are alike!

When is a cantaloupe not a cantaloupe? When it's a muskmelon. The round, netted, tan-colored, orange-fleshed fruits that you see in grocery stores usually are sold as "cantaloupes." However, true cantaloupes are tropical fruits that have green flesh and hard skin and are rarely seen in this country. What people from the United States refer to as cantaloupes technically are muskmelons.

Here's a description of some specialty melons you might like to try:

Charentais:
This traditional French melon has modern varieties that look like muskmelons. It has deep orange flesh and a honeylike flavor.

Crenshaw:
This salmon-fleshed, oval-shaped melon with dark green skin turns mottled yellow when ripe. It needs a long season (about 4 months) to mature.

Honeydew:
This sweet, juicy melon has smooth tan skin and pale green flesh; unlike other melons, it doesn't continue to ripen off the vine. These melons store longer than muskmelons.

Mediterranean:
This group of melons includes many types, such as Israeli, Galia, Piel de Sapo (Christmas), Canary, and Middle Eastern. This is a large group of tropical melons that generally have yellow skin and sweet, aromatic, pale green or white flesh when mature.

Perusing popular melon varieties

Like all cucumber-family crops, melons need warmth, water, space, and sun. For these reasons, they grow well in the Southeast and the Southwest United States. But with the right variety selection and some growing tricks (see the "Growing Those Vines" section later in this chapter), cool-climate gardeners also can enjoy these sweet, juicy fruits. The days to maturity noted in the following sections are from seeding in the garden until first harvest.

Muskmelons and specialty melons

Here are some popular muskmelon and specialty melon varieties:

‘Alaska':
This early hybrid muskmelon variety grows well in areas with short growing seasons. It produces 4-pound fruits in 70 days.

‘Ambrosia':
This 5-pound hybrid muskmelon has sweet, salmon-colored flesh and good resistance to powdery mildew disease. It matures in 86 days.