This is about using squander distance ( OK , and it ’s a slight about grow tasty garden - brisk melon ! ) . When I was a kid , I used to exhibit veg and flowers at the local Horticultural order summertime exhibitions , and I can remember an elderly duo who at the time , seemed to originate every dry dome and giant Allium cepa variety , gain ground all of the ribbons . One year they exhibit a large table of melons – all sieve , and watermelons in every colouration , pink , calx , aureate yellow , ruby , all trim down in half with pretty back specs of germ , presented on white-hot , rectangular exhibition scale . My sassing would water , and I dreamed of someday growing my own rainbow of yield savour . Maybe it was my privileged Brony come out , but I never forget that awful show of melons . One day at an award banquet , I tell them about how I admired their entrance . The fair sex told me that they grew their melon in an old wooden greenhouse , and that they sowed the seed after their tomato plant and geranium were all implant . “ the vine grew all over the benches , and they never had to weed ! ” she said , “ they just took precaution of themselves because the rain would descend in through the broken glass ” .
I do n’t have it off why I have waited so long to try this .
My greenhouse is full many collections of plant life , but most are either summer dormant , or they are decorative potted plants , or trees and shrubs grow in heavy tubs , that are dragged outdoors for the summer . What I am left with is a glasshouse that is about 80 % empty space , every substantial fundament fresh . It is blistering , dry , and basically , idle until former summer when I start the bulb cycle growing again . So I began thinking….what if I grew something that was a small more practical ( and sustainable ) than tender uncommon orchids or summer - bloom gesneriads that have hazy leaves that detest the rain ? After all , ten year ago , this intact side of the property was a high - producing vegetable garden , all of which has been reduce down to 6 raised beds . I lose the volumes of fresh vegetable , and the 60 foot words of bean , ( I do n’t miss weeding them , however ! ) .
The solution , I think , is to practice space wisely , and the greenhouse is a place where I can plant crop that might delight the superfluous summer warmth ( it can reach 100 – 110 degrees F. on a typical twenty-four hours without the fans on . So I am going to hear melons , bottleful gourds and some Japanese cucumbers . A few age ago a squirrel manducate a yap in an erstwhile birdhouse gourds that I had storred under a bench for the summer , and the vine grew into a giant with at least 6 large gourds on it , so I think they can handle the heat energy . I will postulate to pollinate the flowers since I find that most of our bee will not make it in through the cap vent , but it ’s worth trying .
This is not a new idea , for in a rarefied book that I purchase a calendar month ago about calendar month - by - month gardening which was written in 1806 , the author speaks about the many greenhouse melons that he was uprise in his glasshouse , which was in Philadelphia . In the 1800 ’s . most greenhouses in America were used for what they holler ‘ Pine Apples ’ , and for tabular array grape , cucumbers and melons . I was so surprised to have read this , for the nursery was still a new innovation . sure enough , I , in the twelvemonth 2011 more than 200 years later , should be able-bodied to manage this !
I ordered 10 extra magnanimous fiber mesh gro bags , a few bales of soiless professional potting mix , and ten mail boat of heirloom melon . The heirloom diverseness include the fancy grocery store melons one sees in the southward of France in the summer market , the striped orange - fleshed Noir de Carmes , and Petit Gris de Rennes , another French diversity from the 1800 ’s . A few mod varieties vocalize interesting , a mini Citrullus vulgaris with yellow and pinkish anatomy identify Sorbet Swirl , and some bottle gourds . A few varieties of Galia melons that are popular in Europe and the Middle East , and a definitive Chanterais .
