Page 17 - Simply Vegetables Spring 2025

Minesota Midget
watering and sudden low temperatures etc,
they can be planted out much earlier. One
show stopping melon I grew in 2022 was
Prescott Fond Blanc, this one cries out for
a still life artist. I would call this a savoury
melon; I suspect the sweetness has been
bred out of it. When your melon vines are
growing nicely up their twines and the days
are bright and hot don’t forget ventilation,
I open the double doors either end, plus
there are automatic vents, damp down
the path twice a day and blast glasshouse
red spider once a week. Perennials in the
glasshouse or polytunnel like kiwis, vines
and peaches will harbour over-wintered
red spider; I treat my tunnel fruit to a hosing
down every ten days, if it’s a prolonged
hot spell, then once a week. Don’t spray
or hose down the grape vines. My passion
is for watermelons, why, because they
keep for months. Read a ‘Tale of Two
Watermelons’ in a previous issue, they also
don’t appear to suffer from mildew.
For years I couldn’t understand how the
Victorian and Edwardian gardeners grew
melons on piles of 4” thick turf on a bench,
they just went round to the nearest field
and dug up some turf, presumably with
leather jackets and cut worms, it never
worked for me, not even a nice friable
heap of top soil, my plants just died. It
was 2023 before I finally realised that they
were holding back. I started giving away
surplus plants to the Head Gardener of
a local estate, he was growing tomatoes
in something that looked suspiciously
Watermelon, Charleston Gray
Petite Gris de Rennes
like an old melon house, complete with
6” cast iron pipes and a solid bench, only
the wires were missing. I gave him some
plants, one of which was the old Victorian
favourite the Blenheim Orange. I’ve tried to
grow this one on occasions and they just
died. More chance of growing pineapples,
I think. I went down the steps to the Melon
House one day and put my hand on the
cast iron pipe work, remarkably they were
warm, I commented does Sir ------ know
you have the heating on, the answer was
yes, I thought, so that’s how they did it
then, I knew they forced melons, i.e. using
what was called ‘stove’ heat to get them
going early on and to extend the season
at the backend, but they obviously used
back ground heat all through the season.
The result was a Blenheim Orange melon
grown to maturity, with ‘stove’ heat in that
very old traditional Melon House. I entered
it into the RHS Late Fruit and Vegetable
competition at Harlow Carr, in the Any
Other Fruit Class (15+points), it beat my
watermelon, hands down. I described it as
the most expensive melon in history. It was
probably decades since this happened.
Well, a lot of the landed gentry in Victorian
and Edwardian times owned coal mines
and canals so heating expenses were no
object to them.
Finally. If you want to enter watermelons
and melons in competitions, they normally
go into the ‘Any Other Fruit’ class, unless
there is a Melon class, the stewards may or
may not accept a watermelon into a melon
Slice of Malaga
Three way sex – me, a male and a female
class. A good melon at its peak will always
beat a good watermelon, why, because
melons when ripe, change colour and they
should have fragrance; a watermelon has
none of these attributes. The only way of
telling if a watermelon is ripe is if the tendril
at the top of the stalk (which I always leave
on) has started to die off – all books tell
you this. Sadly, most judges are not aware
of this and tend to judge Watermelons
as they would judge melons, as a fellow
watermelon grower said to me once
‘they (the judges) don’t understand them
‘(watermelons). I couldn’t have said it better
myself. It was years before I won first with
a watermelon; even the fantastic Moon
and Stars could only manage third place in
one big show. If you require early fruit the
reliably early Blacktail Mountain is a good
choice. Melons require to peak around the
time of the show, watermelons stay in good
nick for months. ATB.
Books. The bible is Amy Goldman’s ‘The
Melon’; other books are ‘Melons for the
Passionate Grower’ by Amy Goldman and
Melons and Cucurbits, by Richard Brown.
Suppliers. Baker’s Creek Seeds, Missouri,
USA. Real Seeds (Wales).
Watermelons – various
Simply Vegetables 17