i like a nice pair of melons...

[hiyatim]

well actually i have 3 melon plants, grown from march, a honeydew melon about 10 inchs tall and a couple of small water melon plants. I understand melons are really hard to grow here and they probably wont fruit and if they do will taste awful but the plants are there so i want to do my best by them. All 3 are in my 'melon plastic greenhouse' and all 3 are starting to flower, obviuosly they must be pollunated to fruit so shall i open the door on the green house and let the bee's in or what??

any help would be appreciated

[hiyatim]

well ive opened it for an hour see if that helps, they need to be really hot to n=get sweet so its a tough call

[Lesley Jay]

Hi Tim, I haven't grown melons before but they need watering really well and the advice is to put a bucket of water in the greenhouse to help the humidity but keep the door and windows open aswell during the day. With pollination you are going to need a small paint brush (like you would use for water colour painting), gently wipe the brush around the male flower to collect the pollen, then wipe the collected pollen inside the female flower - just like with courgettes. Do this at midday and after three days remove the male flowers to stop the plant wasting energy on them.

[hiyatim]

oh crap! this sounds really horrible and exactly what i dont want to do

wont the bees do it for me if the door is open?? its only a 3 tier reach in plastic greenhouse thing

if not how do i know which is which is it the little bump behind the ladies like the courgettes??

thanks

[Lesley Jay]

Hi Tim, it is exactly the same as female flowers on courgettes. Your melon flowers that are female will have the little 'tiny bump' behind the flower which is the baby melon. Bees and insects might enter your greenhouse and might pollinate the female melon flower. But to be on the safe side just do the paint brush trick. Next year grow Sweetheart melons outside so you can leave it up to the bees!

[hiyatim]

thanks lesley, im off thursday friday this week so will have a go then, cant do it before as ill be in work mid day and not home til 5

this melon is in the greenhouse with the ripped zip so has a 8 inch hole at the bottom, do u think this could affect the temperature enough to spoil the melons? they seem to have stopped selling the replacement covers on the cheap now