Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
starflakes

Best Heirloom Melon?

starflakes
15 years ago

Hi,

I live in an area not very kind to the muskmelon clan on the Great Plains and was hoping to have people speak of their experiences with the heirloom melons they grow and under what conditions please.

My best results have been with Collective Farm Woman, Kazakh Charantais and Haogen.

I'm looking for information or seeds on the following please:

Jenny Lind

Sakatas Sweet

Prescott Fond Blanc

Noir des Carmes

Bidwell Casaba

Zatta

Gaucho

Ananas D'Amerique Achar Verte (Pineapple Melon)

Ananas

Anne Arundel

Petit Gre Rene

Thai Golden Round

D'Alger

Seeds are getting so expensive now that I would rather hear from actual gardeners their views before purchasing or find some kind soul willing to share a few of their's. I only am getting into melons so do not have those seeds to trade and only have been focusing on tomatoes, cukes etc...

I sincerely would love to hear first hand accounts of the above, but if you have some favorite heirloom of yours please write it's virtues and perhaps you can convince me it is will too be my dream melon.

Thank you and God bless

PS: If you just want to email direct, just use my name here @excite.com

Comments (11)

  • jackbenny
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I grew Prescott Fond Blanc, Bidwell Casaba, and Petit Gris de Renne last year. It was a very harsh season with very little rain here. Bidwell was slow to become established, and by the time it started to set fruit, frost hit. Petit produced some tasty melons, but I had to fight the ants for them since they either split open on the end or started to rot...I'll have to put the melons on something this year as they ripen. Prescott was a champ, it seemed totally unaffected by the lack of moisture, and contrary to what I've read, it was very productive. The melons are beautiful, fragrant, but lacking in the flavor department. How it can smell better than it tastes is beyond me. The flesh is also denser than the typical melon. One other melon that performed well last year was Amarillo Oro. It produced a lot of "wrinkled yellow footballs." They are nice and sweet. Kind of like a blander honeydew.

    I grew Collective Farm Woman, Haogen, and Charantais as well last year. Those along with Prescott and Amarillo were the only ones to produce, so I'm guessing you'd have equal success with them.

  • jeremy_davis
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'm growing a ton of heirlooms this year, but only one from your list: Ananas.

    My favorite last year Was Old Time Tennessee. They were prolific, huge, and really cantelope-y in taste. Very juicy. However, it seemed like you had a 48 hour window to pick and eat them. So if you're going to grow them, only grow a few plants, or have friends on stand by for melons.

    This year, I'm growing:

    Amarillo Oro
    Ananas
    Boule d'Or (Golden Perfection)
    Charentais
    Collective Farm Woman
    Crane
    Crenshaw
    Ginger's Pride
    Golden Honeymoon
    Haogen
    Jenny Lind
    Sweet Passion

    And Blacktail, and Moon and Stars Watermelon.

    Anyway, will post more once I start getting ripe melons.

    J

  • georgew79
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hi, Its hard to tell you just how good they would be, as many melons do not do as well as others, as they need a long warm season with soil that has good drainage with plenty of humis worked in. This year I'm growing a lot of different watermelons mostly rare Korean varieties, but I am growing Ananas and Hale's best jumbo along with three different types of sweet asian melons. I grow all my watermelons and melons in deep raised beds with trellises now and find that they grow faster, better and produce sweeter melons. Ananas is a very tasty sweet melon that is quite aromatic with white flesh and gets to be around 5 pounds, but three is more normal I did get one melon that went nearly 7 pounds, but it didn't have the flavor of the smaller ones. If you go to Baker's Creek Heirloom seeds You might find out a bit more about the melons you are seeking, right now I have all my seeds except a few rare watermelon seeds tied up in my garden for this year. Hale's best Jumbo isn't a heirloom melon just yet, but it is OP and is a very good melon with a nice sweet full flavor that you find in most good cantaloupes. To grow it only takes 82 days to mature compared to 100 days for Ananas. There is one variety of early compact cantaloupe (Minnesota Midget) that takes only 60 to 65 days to mature and has pretty good flavor the melons are small 4" which are just a little larger than a soft ball. It's OP although and not a Heirloom variety. If you want to try something different you should try growing some sweet asian melons they are very sweet with white crunchy flesh and a early maturity date. I wish I could be of more help, but this is the best I can do for you at this time.
    George W. Z5-6 MO.

  • marketbasket_netzero_com
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Last year I grew Thai Golden Round melon and bannanna melon,early silverline,blacktail moutain among many
    Thai golden did the best as far as producing not much flavor thou The best was Blacktail moutain available thru rareseeds.com The year before i had alot of cream of sackatawan very good flavor. E mail me at marketbasket@netzero.com if you find seeds for the Thai golden Round melon as i can't find them this year thanks

  • gblack
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I only really started getting into heirloom melons last year. Unfortunately, two of the varieties I grew that did the best are from some seeds I had collected years previous and don't really have a name for...

    I did have good success with the Minnesota Midget, and my family seemed to like that one the best. The plants are fairly compact for a melon (about 4ft across) they set a lot of fruit, they slip from the vine quite easily in true muskmelon fashion and the taste is great. Mine were a bit larger than George's, but they are a small melon - about the right size for a snack for one adult. They'll start to get just a hint of orange to them when they're ripe. They are a fairly early melon and they continue to produce throughout the season, though once the cold weather hit I started to get some orange softball size melons out of them that didn't taste good at all - so until the cold weather hits, they're great. I had them in a clay soil with some compost mixed in and a frequent though light irrigation. Soil drainage could have been better, but overall was still pretty good. They did fine through the hot weather and even withstood some competition from the weeds.

    The Amarillo Ora is one I really liked, but my wife didn't care for it as the texture was a bit off to her (the texture tends to be a bit on the grainy side). The taste is great though. I had a little bit of a challenge figuring out when the right time to pick them was. The first few I picked the taste was rather bland because I had apparently picked them to early. All of the ones after though were great. Experimenting with these a bit, I'm not sure it's possible to leave them on the vine too long as long as you pick them at least by the time the frost starts to kill the vine. I had some that appeared to ripen early that I left that long and they still tasted just as good as the ones I had picked earlier, so if you're unsure about ripeness, better to go late than early.

    I tried Early Frame Prescott and didn't like it. Not only is it a VERY late melon those that did ripen didn't taste good at all (but perhaps that's because it had began to get cold before the first ones ripened). This is not the same melon as the other Prescott mentioned above.

    Here's my growlist for the year:

    Ali Baba Watermelon
    Amarillo Oro
    Banana Melon
    Black Diamond Yellow Flesh Watermelon
    Blacktail Mountain Watermelon
    Cantalope (mine)
    Charentais Melon
    Charleston Grey Watermelon
    Congo Watermelon
    Crane Melon
    Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon
    Desert King Watermelon
    Ginger's Pride Melon
    Golden Midget Watermelon
    Healy's Pride Melon
    Honey Dew (mine)
    Jenny Lind Melon
    Katanya
    Minnesota Midget
    Orangeglo Watermelon
    Prescott Fond Blanc Melon
    Royal Golden Watermelon
    Thai Chatchai 185 Watermelon (good results with this last year and it's early. Try it if you can find the seeds)
    Tom Watson Watermelon
    Valencia Winter Melon
    Sweet Siberian
    Tendergold
    Early Hanover
    Noir de Carmes
    Petit Gris de Rennes

  • Illinoigardener
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I planted only two hills of Ali Baba. Was very dry the last month but the flavor and size of the few melons I got was great. Also planted Tom Watson, Black diamond yellow belly strain, Kleckley sweet, Georgia Rattlesnake, Moon and Stars, Valencia winter melin, Cavaillon, Ananas, Petit Gris de Rennes and Charentais. I would definitely plant the Ali Baba again. Need more time to review the others.

  • fusion_power
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sakata Sweet is an asian melon, you have to have a taste for them. I don't.

    Jenny Lind is very unpredictable. Grow it for the fun, but grow something else if you want a lot of melons.

    Susan Healy is a really good and productive orange flesh cantaloupe.

    Yellow Moon & Star is a superb and very productive watermelon.

    Ledmon is an outstanding pink/red flesh melon.

    Don't expect to ship any of the above, they are all tender and easily damaged.

    Sandhill Preservation has a good selection of melon seed.

    DarJones

  • softguitar
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Starflakes and GBlack...

    How can you grow so many melons in one season and not expect them to cross pollinate ?

    Can you tell me what measure you take to keep them from cross pollinating ?

  • mtroyal
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I grew watermelons many years ago until my field got diseased. Now I only grow the Sweet Favorite for its disease resistance, but may try others in different soil. I put in a garden for someone, which involved filling a hole 12 feet in diameter with layers of leaves and dirt and planted two runt Sweet Favorite seedlings. I ended up with probably 10 good watermelons from the two plants, where I normally only save one watermelon per plant. The Sweet Favorite is an early watermelon and I let one set on early, and then 3 weeks later, let another one set on.

    But getting back to heirlooms, and watermelon growing, I only harvested two watermelons that had a perfume flavor. One was a White Seeded Watson. It also did not have many seeds. The Orangeglo would be my all time favorite. If you pick it up and squeeze the blossom end, mine would split open. I used to hold one and ask somebody if they want me to split the melon open . I would then squeeze the blossom end and it would split open, amazing whomever.

  • girlbug2
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    mtroyal that's really cool about the Orangeglos! Now I must try growing them.

Sponsored
J.E.S. Home Improvement
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars3 Reviews
Loudoun County's Full-Scale Construction Firm