6 techniques for growing melons

Melons — like cantaloupes, honeydew and watermelon — make for a sweet, refreshing summer treat. Learn about how to grow them easily and effectively.

• Melon seeds sprout best when planted with their pointy tips facing down.
• For a head start, sow seed indoors three weeks before your last spring frost and set the plants out when they are a month old.

• To prevent rot, slip a board or flat tile underneath the fruits once they reach the size of an orange.
• Heat-absorbing tiles will also provide extra warmth in cool climates.

Keep small melons such as cantaloupes and muskmelons off the ground and free of pests and disease by using legs cut from old pantyhose as protective sleeves for them.

• As young melons start to develop, slide each one into the foot section of a leg and tie it to a stake to suspend the melon above the ground.
• The nylon "hammocks" will stretch as the melons mature and keep them from touching the soil.

Because working around vines may disturb the transmission of nutrients to the fruits, avoid pulling weeds in your melon patch.

• The easiest way is to prepare the planting site and then cover it with a weed barrier mat, sold at garden centres.
• Anchor the edges with rocks, cut slits where you want to plant, and put in your seeds or transplants.

If you take up the barrier at the end of the season and store it in a dry place, it will last for several years.

For the best fruits, allow only four or five melons to ripen on each plant.

• Pinch off all the other young fruits while they are small and green.

• Give melons 2.5 centimetres of water weekly until three weeks before harvest.
• When the melons are almost ripe, withhold moisture, to concentrate their sugars.

With cantaloupes, you can press against the blossom end (not the end with the stem). It will give slightly and smell sweet when the fruit is ripe.

Honeydews usually change rind colour as they reach full ripeness.

With watermelons, look at the curled tendril nearest the stem. If it's dry and brown, tap the melon with your knuckles. A ripe melon gives off a deeper sound than one that isn't quite ready.