Cantaloupe/Muskmelon

[Nife180]

Hi!

Well I sowed some Cantaloupe's a while ago, 3 seeds and they all germinated. Now I kept two as the third was slow.

One of them has a flower bud with closed petals, I don't remember when I sowed them exactly. But I reckon I did that on 1st of May.


I love Cantaloupe, but I can't find the North American variety that I'm growing, It's a good treat, as it's like a dwarf melon.

Here's some images, the first one was captured on the 8th of May. The others Today.

[~Obsidian~]

Sowed them on first of May? And it already has a flower bud? You sure about that?

[Nife180]

Yeah and it just opened on one of them! It's a male flower. is this normal? I've read that some plants flower early with male blooms to give the bees enough time to discover them.

[~Obsidian~]

Whoa thats one fast growing plant! What does it look like now I wonder? Taking into consideration what you said about it being a male flower I did some searching and it seems that the canteloupe plant is dichogamous - a mechanism that reduces the chance of self pollination. It can be of two types - protandry - where the male flowers mature and wilt before the female ones do, and protogyny - which is vice versa. It would seem that protandry is occurring here, so it is a good thing that you have two plants, otherwise you may not end up with fruit!

See this link (http://www.geocities.com/green_cache/cant.html) for more info.

How is this doing now?

[Riz]

nife..

are you going to replant them in individual containers or what ?