[tracy-fuerteventura]

i have got my melon seedlings off to a great start and they are now about 4" high and i have hardened them of my question is can i grow them as trailing plants as it is very windy where i live and i think growing them up a trellis would not be a good idea.
so if i can trail them have you got any tips that might make it easier for me.
cheers tracy

[Trillium]

No idea how long your growing season is, but if it's like ours, about 4 months of good weather, you'd need to eventuallly tip trim the growing ends to concentrate plant energy to producing a few good melons rather than a long trail of them which wouldn't mature before cold weather.
Also, the leaf size will determine whether or not you can let the vines be 'ground cover' as they might be so large that they'd shade shorter plants like carrots, beans, beets, etc. Tall plants like corn, climbing beans, etc don't mind the vines crawling around them and it would help with maintaining some soil moisture.
Other than feeding melons well and giving them regular water, there's little else to suggest.

[tracy-fuerteventura]

our growing season is about 10 months here its only in the height of summer i have major problems.you say to tip trim them what length should i do this at ?  i have plenty of land so i will dedicate an area for them so they wont intrude on anything else,you mention to feed them do i just give them a general feed like a tomato feed or do they need something else
cheers tracy

[Trillium]

With such a long growing season, you could allow quite a few melons to begin forming per plant before you'd need to simply snap off the growing tips of each vine. This will then allow the plant to put its energy back into producing good sized melons that fully ripen. To allow the plant to keep endlessly vining and flowering creates a long vine with loads of small, not well developed melons by season's end.
For feed, a general fertilizer helps but mulching a few times with compost or rotted manure is a bigger help and adds far more flavour. Basically, poop adds flavour. We'd only mulch once or twice here, but with 10 months to grow and more melons, you'd need to replenish the compost or manure mulch almost monthly, which would also help with maintaining moisture. All melons are also quite suspectible to drying out so try to keep your watering on a regular schedule and from underneath to avoid water burns on leaves from the sun. If you can't access a lot of compost or old manure, add what you can and mulch heavily around the main plant with straw or older grass clippings. 

[tracy-fuerteventura]

thanks thats a great help