@smokey Looking good! I was excited to see the progress our melons have made recently. We need to get some slings under a few of them, pronto.
@schuth Thanks! I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well they’ve done this year; we’ve had terrible squash luck the past few years and almost didn’t plant any, but I think more rain/less 90°+ days this summer and fewer plants to mind has helped. The zucchini hasn’t done quite as well, but these two squash plants have kept us in Virginia squash casserole et al. all summer.
Do you put the slings under your melons to keep them from bugs/ground contact rot, or from falling off the vines/snapping the vines, or both? We don’t grow any, but many years we get some volunteer cantaloupe from seeds that ended up in the compost pile….
@smokey We sling to prevent the vines from snapping as they get heavier. Last time we grew melons, we still had an in-ground bed where we planted these. We’re trying some much larger melons; a few vines have climbed the chicken wire protecting the raised beds from local fauna.