Melons
Featured Recipes: Gardening Tips: The Nose Knows
Small and green, a Charentais melon can look unripe to
unaccustomed eyes. When it is ready to pick, the flesh takes on
just a bit of a tan or golden cast, but it’s the delicious scent
that truly says “Go”. The fruit may also have split slightly at
the bottom end--another good sign. If you’ve never tasted a
Charentais, you have a rare treat ahead. When is a Melon Ripe?
Many melon varieties are ripe at what is called "full slip" - that is, when you can sever the melon from the stem by lightly pushing it off with your thumb. But this rule of thumb is not trustworthy for certain melon types,
the Middle Eastern 'Galia' type being one of them. In this case, we turn up our noses. When the melon smells ripe, it is. Pressing the blossom end slightly will help to release that seductive aroma.
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Nothing speaks the sultry language of summer like the juicy taste of melon. Seed in the greenhouse or under grow lights, four to six weeks before the last frost date. Transplant to the hottest spot in your garden, well-amended with compost and manure, after all danger of frost has passed. Or, direct-sow two weeks after all danger of frost has passed. As melons reach maturity, stop watering to prevent splitting. Harvest when the stem disconnects readily from the vine.
Average seed life: 2 years
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#3100 Galia Melon: 80-90 days
Galia has a spicy-sweet aroma and performs reliably despite cooler summers. The skin is netted with gold and the flesh is the cool green of a glacial lake. Sturdy, mildew-resistant vines yield two to three pound, globe-shaped melons. This luscious variety is not available in markets in the U.S. but French and Italian cooks know them well, flocking to summer markets for these perfumed Middle Eastern beauties. Serve Galia with prosciutto or parma ham as antipasto. Or at meal’s end, with bunches of fat purple grapes and tangerines. (OP.)
Packet of 17 Seeds / $3.25
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#3110 Athena Cantaloupe: 70-80 days
Athena is an early-maturing, Middle Eastern hybrid cantaloupe, and like the Greek goddess, this melon is in a class by itself. Big, flavorful cantaloupes are borne on sturdy, disease-resistant vines. Pick these well-netted oval fruits, weighing a hefty five pounds at maturity. Athena produces reliably even in cool summers and the thick orange flesh is highly resistant to cracking and splitting. This cantaloupe is fit for the goddesses! (F1.)
Packet of 17 Seeds / $3.35
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#3130 New Queen Watermelon: 75-80 days
An exciting Taiwanese import, New Queen is a bright orange-yellow
fleshed watermelon that is fragrant and juicy with just a few seeds. With
12% sugar content, it is so sweet that you will mistake it for candy! Early
maturing, vigorous and prolific, it is a uniform, globe-shaped, "icebox
type" melon, weighing only five to six pounds. (F1.)
Packet of 15 Seeds / $3.25
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#3140 Savor Charentais Melon: 75-80 days
There is no need to translate Melon in French; merely ask for a Charentais, the quintessential French heirloom variety. Our Charentais-type Savor hybrid is early maturing and grows to a plump 2 to 2 1/2 pounds. Boasting a succulent, orange, fine-textured flesh, Savor Charentais is very sweet with a rich, complex flavor and a deep, heady aroma. The fruit is round and smooth with a gray or gray-blue rind borne on disease-resistant plants. Be sure to plant this succulent gem in your family's garden for you will likely not ever see it at the market: the fruits' tender fragility makes shipping difficult. (F1.)
Packet of 15 Seeds / $4.15
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#3150 Montreal Market Nutmeg Melon: 75-85 days
Back again! A 19th century heirloom, the prized Montreal Market Nutmeg, AKA the Queen of Melons, was raised exclusively in the Montreal area. King Edward VII’s favorite melon, the yields can be up to 15 pound (but usually are smaller), round, netted, deeply ribbed fruits with a thin rind and flattened ends. Its light green flesh has a superb texture and melts in your mouth with an ethereal, spicy sweet taste reminiscent of nutmeg. The first taste illicits an involuntary, yummy-swooning expression in reaction to its exquisite perfection. (OP.)
Packet of 15 Seeds / $2.95
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#3160 Tigger Asian Melon: 80-90 days
The most stunning, unusual melon we have ever seen,
Tigger Asian Melons have radiant lemon-yellow skin with
brilliant fire engine-red spots and stripes and creamy white
flesh. Easy to grow, this small grapefruit-sized melon will
develop a sweet, intoxicating aroma and taste in dry summers
with prolonged, scorching heat as long as you keep them
regularly watered. (OP.)
Packet of 25 Seeds / $3.25
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#3170 Pony Red Mini Watermelon: 80 days
Pony is the perfectly sized watermelon for a romantic breakfast for two. Weighing in at 5 to 6 pounds each, Pony yields little, light green globes marked with dark green stripes. Its thin rind encases delicious, firm and sweet red-pink flesh that is simply irresistible. A Japanese hybrid, Pony is relatively early, disease-resistant and incredibly productive~one hill yields about ten prized melons. (F1.)
Packet of 20 Seeds / $3.55
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#3180 Petit Gris de Rennes Melon: 80-85 days
New! The champagne of melons, this French heirloom produces small two to three pound dense melons with heavenly-sweet, perfumed orange flesh. Adaptable to most climates including cooler zones, these divine dark gray-green melons are quite rare yet are the top pick in melon taste tests. (OP.)
Packet of 20 Seeds / $2.95
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#2956 Bitter Melon Edible Gourds: 75-90 days
New! AKA Bitter Gourd, the Balsam Pear. This unique edible gourd is coveted in Asia, Indonesia, Latin America, India and Australia for its cool, cleansing, bitter quinine-citrus taste and bracing, grassy aroma. It is the size and shape of an apple-green cucumber with deeply furrowed, smooth-skin and lightly crisp to supple flesh when mature. Bitter Melon should be started indoors 4 weeks before setting out when night temperatures stay above 55°F. Grow them like cucumbers and support the vines with a tall trellis, netting or strings to keep the fruit straight. Harvest them regularly to encourage production when they are 3” to 8” long and the fruit is firm, before any orange coloration. Then, enjoy them in much the same way as you would zucchini squash. (OP.)
Packet of 15 Seeds / $3.45
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