“A Watched Cantaloupe Never Fruits”
Yesterday I joined many Austinites for another veggie class, this time taught by Master Gardener Patty Leander. During her excellent presentation, Patty covered a lot of information regarding specific fall crops recommended for central Texas. I particularly appreciated the various resources available as printouts, such as lists of recommended seed varieties and good seed resources (you can find these pages at the Central Texas Horticulture website, under Gardens & OrchardsàVegetables; also adding to my sidebar, even though it’s by Aggies). Caroline from the Shovel-Ready Garden was there, as well as Master Gardeners and Austin Garden Bloggers Bonnie from Kiss of Sun and Vicki from Playin’ Outside. I heard rumors of there being other local garden bloggers there, too, but I didn’t get to meet up with them.
After the presentation, we chatted for a bit, even talking about my cantaloupe worries and laughing about the plant sex thing. None of us knew what to expect for pollen from male cantaloupe flowers, nor whether I should be concerned about the potential hybrid-ness of my cantaloupe and the sterility of my plants’ male flowers. So basically I went home still on the same path of “wait and see.”
Not really wanting to feel sad that my female cantaloupe flowers were pining for potentially potent pollen, I put off visiting my garden until late in the day, then decided to go out and squish a few bugs. I’d had the kids watering the veggie garden for the past few days, so I was out of touch, and the bugs seemed to figure it out. The aphids are spreading, I might have some red dots that could be spider mites on my big pumpkin plants, and the little as-yet-unidentified red bugs on my cantaloupes are getting more numerous, along with their larger black versions. So I did a little veggie “debugging.” Sweat bees are still my tiny little pollinating buddies – I check the inside of a flower before I do any additional hand pollinating.
My cantaloupes are very prolific bloomers.
And then I saw it. This cute hairy little bulb on the female flower. It was a little bigger and noticeably more fuzzy than ones in previous days.
And as I inspected a little more, I found an even larger one!
And another one!
Could they be… pollinated?!!! Or are they just teasing me? Will non-pollinated ovaries grow in size for awhile?
But then I about screamed when my eyes fell upon this one. I almost tackled my 12-year-old as I ran for the camera.
It’s bigger than a golf ball!
Does this mean I might have normal cantaloupe after all? Or could they become goofy-shaped strange-tasting hybrid freaky fruits? I know, I know — wait and see. No matter what happens, I’m having fun, and that’s worth the price of all that soil I put in those raised beds.
In other veggie-odd news, my sugar pumpkins have bigger leaves than my jack-o-lantern pumpkins. They have many buds, both male and female, but only the first males are just now blooming, to my knowledge. Weird. Of course, they could have been blooming while my back was turned.
And I found the first female buds on the jack-o-lantern pumpkins. I bet those male flowers are excited. J
Pole beans are growing. Corn’s growing. One is sending up something through the center of its stalk – hopefully a good something and not a worm.
And I’m canta-loopy. Time to read up on when to reduce watering and how many fruit I should remove from the plant to maximize the sweetness of those that remain. Is it one cantaloupe per vine or one per plant for max sweetness? I hope one per vine.
Assuming I’m not actually growing Audrey 2, that is.
Thought I’d drop by and so glad that I did – incredible photo’s. A great blog, now a fave!
I’ve grown some cantaloupe in my zone 5 garden, and picked seven this week, so far. I didn’t reduce the number that grew on, so they are a bit smaller than those in the grocery store, but much tastier!
i missed the class..:( i literally hit the wall and decided to sleep in and just be slow yesterday morning. we did get out later, but i was so tired that getting ready for the class just wasn’t going to happen..but i’m glad you went and i can’t wait to see what you learned!
and i was just going to tell you taht my cantaloupes are finally blooming again, but it looks like no need!! your’s look fabulous! i’m pretty much ready to throw in the towel with this veggie garden and just focus on the fall…but the cantaloupes are finally starting to look alright, for the one vine that survived that is..haha! hopefully i’ll get somthing out of it..;) definitely going to work harder on the fall garden and then plant alot earlier for next spring..;)
Johnson, thank you so very much!
Carol, I just checked out your video. Your garden looks great! Thanks for the info on the vines — I’m going to monitor for a couple of days and then see how many fruits are on each plant before I decide what to do. I have so many blooms, I suspect I should nip a few. I have lots of fruit showing at the moment, whatever they might become.
Cat, I’m sorry I missed you, but I’m glad the handouts are available online, because they are very useful! Good news about the cantaloupe! I have no idea what mine are going to turn into — a guy at NG said he grew a bad-tasting hybrid one time, but I’ll cross my fingers that I get something I can eat!
Meredith, your melons look fantastic! My smile just grew and grew scrolling through your pictures. How exciting! I’m so happy for you =) I lol’d at nearly bowling your 12yo over. Isn’t it wonderful how great your garden makes you feel. Best of luck with your melons xo
OMG OMG OMG, yea! Congratulations. Do you feel like a proud mommy?? Like a watched pot, just when you stop looking, plant sex works! I’m so happy for your discovery and look forward to hearing about taste tests.
Dot, thank you. My son was laughing at me as he jumped out of my way. But the kids were as excited as I was. Well, maybe not as excited. But fairly excited, nonetheless!
Bonnie — I like that you said “proud mommy” — my friend called me a “proud grandma.” Well, whichever — I am definitely proud!
Congrats to you and your melons!!
Such nice photos, too, Meredity!
Congratulations on your cantaloupe success. I really wouldn’t cut any off the vine to leave a certain amount like you read. Sometimes there are more experts than people that actually know. My friend Andy has ten cantaloupe vines and there are, as best he can count, 58 cantaloupes on them right now. Between him and I, we have already eaten about thirty. The biggest was 13#. So, if it were me, I would let them all grow. They are Burpee’s Ambrosia. Sweet as candy.
Not a success yet! Might not really be cantaloupe I’m growing! Next year, I’m absolutely trying Ambrosia. I’ll be such a pro then! (not)
I love looking at your blog. Your pictures are great! Maybe one day I will venture out and start a vegetable garden.
You should, Amy! It’s a lot easier than it sounds (even though I might blog otherwise), especially if you just start small and stick to one plant or two until you’re ready for more. In fact, just before this cantaloupe/pumpkin craziness, I said the same thing, that someday I might start a veggie garden. And now look at me, just a couple of months later. Now I’m looking at fall plants, and I’m eager for more! It’s incredibly rewarding, and I don’t even have a harvest yet!
Cool! I’m really excited about your cantaloupes and reading about your trials and successes! I’ve learned a lot from you about “sex” in the garden. Haha. Again, beautiful photos.
Wow! Look at those! You must be so excited! These photos are great!
I have over 100 flowers on 5 cantaloupe plants for around 5 weeks and no fruit yet.I am thinking I wasted garden and energy on them.Beautifull plants ,healthy and lovely flowers but useless to me since the leaves, flowers and vines dont make for very good eating..Congrats on your loupes.There beautifull.
Kerry, my pumpkins did the same thing to me — flowers and flowers and no fruit for the longest time, many weeks. In fact, I had only male flowers for a long time on the cantaloupe, too. Just keep an eye out for the female flowers and then you might try hand-pollinating them. It’s possible that the plants are waiting for the right temperature. And did you grow the cantaloupes from seed packets or from the seeds of a store-bought cantaloupe? That might be a factor, if the cantaloupe was a hybrid. I learned the hard way to stick with seed packets.
I found 3 flowers with pea size swollen areas below the flowers today and the stems are thick leading to the flowers !I think I,ve got some cantaloupes .Sounds like the original story on your blog.I am very happy now.My sunflower had opened up 2 days ago and I noticed a dozen little bees hanging around the sunflower.Maby they helped out with the cantaloupes or maby it was my attemmpt to hand pollenate. Thanks for the advice help from your website.God bless.
Hurray, Kerry! I’m so excited for you. You’ve got fun times ahead of you, watching those cantaloupes grow. Good luck! Let me know how they turn out!