Growing Melons On The Veranda

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Melons and gourds adorned the veranda and gave a high yield of fruits

Melons ripened in the cozy veranda environment

Last season, my husband Boris Petrovich implemented two of his new projects on our site. I also want to tell about their results. The first dream project that he had been hatching for a long time: to use watermelon and melon plants as a design element.

For the fifth year now we have been getting a stable harvest of these melons and gourds on the site, but this is not enough. My husband has long wanted to use watermelons and melons in such a way as to show all their beauty. In the past season, difficult in terms of weather conditions, his dream came true. It all started with the fact that in 2008 my husband added a veranda to our little house. The need for it had ripened a long time ago: guests often come to us, but there was nowhere to receive them.

The veranda is 4x4 meters in size. Boris Petrovich covered it with polyethylene film 150 microns thick to protect it from rain. For ventilation of the veranda and comfort inside it, a large window was made in the roof, and for better air movement and coolness in two places, the film on the walls could also be rolled up.

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The veranda was built in the fall of 2008, so we could feel all the charm of the sun's rays passing through the film only in the coming summer season of 2009. And all winter, my husband thought about how to protect himself from the scorching sun in summer and create an unusual green background on the veranda. He wanted our veranda inside to resemble the tropics with rapidly growing vines. That is why his choice fell on watermelons and melons. When he realized which plants would give the desired effect, the whole picture of the project immediately emerged - from the manufacture of warm ridges to the arrangement of lashes of plants and their pods on the veranda.

Cucumbers and watermelons ripen together in the veranda

To hedge the project, he connected the veranda to the open-cut house. Additional heat through it came to the veranda on cold days in May and early June, and then in the second half of August, when the bulk of the melons began to ripen.

This veranda was very useful to us at the beginning of May for keeping grown seedlings of vegetables and flowers there. Since May 15, almost all containers with young plants have been there.

In May, I still do not live permanently in the country. And therefore, on my next visit there was a surprise that upset me at first. The fact is that on the south side of the veranda, to the right and left of the entrance, the husband made two warm ridges with an area of 1.5 m? and a height of 50 cm. I did not like these structures, as they seemed uninteresting and inappropriate here. In addition, one of these ridges blocked from the sun from the south and west the seedlings of flowers I recently planted near the house.

I didn't really understand then what would come of his idea? But an experiment is an experiment. And I gave him two cups of watermelon seedlings and two melons for this. This was a new business, so we decided to use new varieties. To decorate the veranda, we used seedlings of watermelons of the Zemlyanin and Sorrento varieties, which we purchased for the first time, as well as a new hybrid of Roxalan melon. There was no second melon novelty, we had to use the already tested hybrid of Gerd's melon. We sowed the seeds of these melons and watermelons for seedlings on April 8.

By May 10, having filled the warm beds with organic matter, Boris Petrovich covered them with plastic wrap for quick warming up. After a dozen days, the ridges breathed warmth. The husband built above them wall mini-greenhouses made of plastic film, which could be opened for planting seedlings, airing the plants and watering them. On May 20, seedlings were planted in mini-greenhouses.

Watermelon on the veranda of the Romanovs

Ten days later, Boris Petrovich decided to complicate his experiment: he planted one glass of cucumber seedlings - an Ekol hybrid - on two melon plants, and a glass of curly beans of the Countess variety for two watermelons. And it was convenient to plant all the plants and take care of them outside the veranda, for this it was enough only to roll up a third of the film in mini-greenhouses.

Plants of watermelons and melons were formed into three stems: the main and two strong first lateral shoots. The cucumber was formed into one stem, the husband pinched all the lateral shoots - two ovaries and a leaf.

After planting, all the seedlings quickly took root and started growing. After June 10, all the lashes of melons and watermelons were introduced into the upper part of the veranda on its south side. A week later, the bean shoots caught up with their neighbors and entered the veranda.

The husband watered the garden twice a week with warm, slightly podzolized water. He constantly monitored the plantings so that they did not overgrow. Inside the veranda, under the film ceiling, he pulled the cords in order to guide the lashes of developing plants along them. For the fruit that is being set, Boris Petrovich has built various shelves and rockers so that they fit securely and comfortably on these stands. It took a lot of work, but the veranda turned out to be unusually interesting and beautiful - the plants flourished at the top, and below there were comfortable benches and a table for the family and guests.

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Cucumbers hanging in clusters at the entrance to the veranda

The first melon set on June 10, and the first watermelon was pollinated on June 11. As a result, four watermelons grew on the veranda last season: from a Sorrento whip - one watermelon weighing 18 kg, the other - 3 kg; from a whip of the Zemlyanin variety - one watermelon of 11 kg, the other - 6 kg. We took 18 melons, their average weight was from 1.5 to 2 kg. The last three melons we picked were already 2.5 kg each. And a lot of cucumbers formed on one lash. Their fruits looked very impressive under the veranda ceiling. Beans occupied the western wall of the veranda with their lashes, their pods were up to 70 cm long.

Scourges of watermelons and melons evenly covered the entire south side and top of the greenhouse, creating a beautiful openwork shadow inside. Melons plants were constantly cleaned: the growth of the main shoots was not limited, and the lateral ones were all pinched after the second leaf. If we did not do this, then we would get thickets of plant tops and a continuous shadow inside. In addition, over the years of growing melons, we realized that a large harvest of these crops and large fruits we get due to the powerful, cleaned tops of watermelons and melons. We usually pinch the main lash of these plants only at the last moment - during the period of mass ripening of fruits.

Our veranda last rainy summer was a favorite place for the grandson to play. We, adults, also often gathered to have some tea in it. The sight of ripening fruits, the aroma of ripening melons, an interesting design of the veranda - all this lifted the mood and gave inspiration for further work. All the fruits that we removed there are fully ripe.

We think that all the guests who visited our site last summer were also impressed by what they saw on the veranda, they now know that in the conditions of the Northwest they can grow and ripen watermelons and melons, that they can also be beautifully inscribed into the landscape of the site.

Beans on the walls of the veranda

I will separately dwell on the feeding of the plants that have developed on our veranda. After all, it was necessary from two beds with an area of 1.5 m ² to obtain not only the maximum surface of the leaf mass of melons for decorating the veranda, but also a good harvest of fruits. Without top dressing, such a result cannot be obtained. A year ago, Boris Petrovich developed a method of dry feeding - with a thick layer of mulch. He used this method for rapidly growing pumpkin crops, now he used it for the veranda.

Its essence is that in mid-July, at the time of maximum fruit setting and growth, nutrient mulch was placed under the plants, consisting of burnt sawdust and hay soaked in horse manure and urine residues. This litter with a layer of 5-8 cm, when watered with warm podzol water, provided fast-growing plants with a balanced nutrition.

And melons and gourds last summer successfully grew under it. In addition, their root system under the mulch was protected from hypothermia during cold nights. It was she who helped us grow a good harvest of watermelons and melons without the use of other fertilizers. Another plus for it - after watering, the surface of the ridges quickly dried out.

This was my husband's first project, which, in my opinion, he managed to successfully implement. I will tell you about the results of the second project in the next issue of the magazine.