[shokkyy]

I'm toying with the idea of trying a melon in my polytunnel next year, but how much space would it need? if it's likely to take over the whole tunnel I'd rather not go there, but it would be nice to have a go with them. And do you need to grow two plants for pollination or is one ok?

[sunshineband]

Depends on the melon as to how much space it needs.

A small sort, like galia style, runs at least 3m if you don't stop it, but onec a fruit has set generally folk prevent any more from forming on that bit so it grows properly.

Some can be grown up a support too, as long as the fruit itself is carefully nestled in something --- old tights can be used 

[JayG]

1) Total greenhouse experience = 1 year

2) Total melon-growing experience = 1 year 

3) Variety = Sweetheart

4) Lessons learned - they easily grew from end-to-end (trained on wires) of my 8X6' greenhouse and not knowing any better I let them, but given the summer we had and my location in Sheffield I would have been better off restricting them to half that length/number of side-shoots and would probably have got about 3 really good fruits per plant rather than 5 or so of descending Russian doll sizes!

5) Sweetheart have both male and female flowers so you could only grow one but the female flowers must be pollinated (probably by hand in a polytunnel) or you will get no fruits.

6) They were lovely, but as you've probably guessed I don't know about other varieties which possibly (?) don't need pollination to produce fruit (parthenogenic.)

[shokkyy]

That's helpful, thanks for that. I spotted a watermelon variety on DT Brown's called Red Star that they say copes well with our rubbish summers, but sadly it doesn't say anything about either plant size or pollination.

[gobs]

"How much space does melon take?"

Hardly any. On this climate.





 

All these giantly sprawling pumpkins, squashes, melons, etc. (in the warm and sunny   ) do not actually need much more root space than about a square metre. A lot of them, anyway. So it is just a question, of where you plat the foliage or how much you let to be.