My current home doesn't have a verandah or even a porch but I dream of owning a little farmette again, with a verandah overlooking chickens, goats and gardens. Absolute heaven!

Melon Varieties

Yesterday I talked about cucumber varieties, and how we planted almost everything we had. Guess what? Today is melons. We plant them as a part of companion group: sunflowers, melons, and cucumbers. Kinda like the three sisters (I call it the "three cousins"): the sunflowers grow up tall and strong, with large stalks. The cucumbers climb up the sunflower stalks. And the melons provide a living "mulch" to keep in moisture.

Here are the varieties of watermelon and other melons we TRIED to grow this year:
- Golden Midget Watermelon
- Sugar Baby Watermelon
- Crenshaw Melon
- Honeydew-Tam Dew Melon

Our first growing season at this new place and the soil wasn't actually soil; it was sand. Most sprouted but despite mulch, fertilizing, etc.... not even ONE produced a melon. We had to buy them this year! Refuse to next year. We're preparing raised beds, adding lots of goat and chicken and rabbit manure, grass cuttings, and so forth. Next year will be much better.

Anyway, we love all sorts of melons, but again, my goal is to plant only one watermelon and one cantaloupe kind. Here's what we want out of melons:
- short growing season (90 days, but less is preferred)
- easy to grow
- small to medium fruit
- long vines
- high in vitamins and water content
- delicious as a sorbet, or dehydrated
- good for us AND to sell extras at market or CSA
- heirloom (non-gmo, and so we can save seeds to grow)
- good for our critters to eat (chickens and goats)

Question: Will a cantaloupe cross with a watermelon?

So what heirloom cantaloupe and watermelons do YOU have the most success with? Suggestions?

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