Growing cantaloupes vertically using a cattle panel trellis with mesh slings and hose. From seed to hanging fruit in 4 months. April 1st 2020 - July 29th, 2020.
I know a 65 year old woman who sets up cattle panel arches in her garden… BY HERSELF! With the panel lying flat on the ground, she ties a piece of baling twine- one to each corner on the same end of the panel. Then she takes each length of twine into her hards like a set of reins for a horse and starts walking backwards on top of the panel. The panel then begins to roll over on itself into an arch and when all four corners are lined up, she secures the arch with the baling twine “reins”. The arch laying on its side, is now stable enough to be tipped up and placed in the desired location. Then she pounds 4 T- posts into the ground on the outside of the arch, one per corner… removes the baling twine and VOILA! Easy peasy 👍
What a beautiful grow! Were they in full sun? The two years that I attempted cantaloupe, it was the Charentais variety and every one of them split open right before maturity. I’m in 8b (Bryan-College Station)….about to try again. Your success is inspirational!😊
This will be my first year growing cantaloupes, this was a helpful resource, I hadnt considered vertical, just researching trellis options, and saw this. I may try it!
Glad it was helpful. The cattle panel trellis was easy to build and I have a video on my channel showing how I did it you can check out. Also another option is to use your fence for a trellis. I have a video where I grow cantaloupes and watermelons vertically using my wood fence. Thanks for watching!
Glad it helped you. I have a new video that I’m uploading tomorrow that shows the 3 different ways I support cantaloupes and watermelon growing vertically. It may be helpful for you. Thanks for commenting and watching!
Thank you for sharing start to finish. This helpful and inspirational for my son's cantaloupe and also another garden project as well. Keep enjoying with your awesome family.
My kids had a lot of fun planting the seeds, watching them grow and picking their own fruit and eating it fresh! I imagine yours will too and I hope you’re able to get some seeds in the ground!
This is what I’ll be doing with my kids! I let them pick out some melon seeds, and then I bought a cattle panel to grow them vertically. Loved the video. Thanks for sharing!!
@@TheTexasGardener I have cabbage, bush beans and salad greens already growing. I haven't started the cantaloupe yet. I think it was too hot last summer when I did them. I should really start them now before it happens again!
Ive been growing my vines vertically for years and have never needed those slings. Its a vine. They're meant to hang. The plant will hold it. I currently have at least 20-25lbs watermelons hanging. And have had thirty pound pumpkins and banana squash growing before. Pictures to prove it all. Even pics of the weights. Now the cantaloupe do fall off when ripe. But hey that just lets you know its ready.
I’ve had a few fall off and split - so I use the hammocks. Now I use the hammocks only for the ones that are higher up and leave the lower ones alone. It’s been working well!
@@TheTexasGardener I did find a watermelon on the ground this morning along with one cantaloupe. The cantaloupe was there because it was ready. The watermelon however was there I believe because of the recent tropical storm we had here in so cal. It may be put too much water into the fruit too quickly. Not sure. Maybe needed another week on the vine till fully ripe but was still edible. I think I'll try the hammock method out next year and see if it's more beneficial to me.
If you are ever on the gulf coast, check fishing docks where you will probably find discarded sections of fishing netting. Pogie netting is perfect and free.
Very nice trellis using cattle panels. Did you do any kind of pruning like cutting off suckers growing ahead of your fruits? How many fruits do you let grow per plant?
Thanks! At first I just let them grow however many got pollinated. Now I do 1 sometimes 2 per plant and I do some pruning of the main vine after it gets up high on the cattle panel and then thin it out to usually one cantaloupe per vine. Are you using cattle panels for a trellis? Thanks for watching!
Nice video. I just installed a cattle panel across 2 raised beds starting from one bed and over onto the other, so I have a path between. I put each end of the panels 1 foot inside the beds, then planted cantaloupes on both sides of each end of the panels spaced 1 foot apart. So 16 plants in all. I'm not sure if this is too dense, but I guess I'll find out. This is my first time raising cantaloupes on panels so it's somewhat of an experiment, though one that I'm hoping turns out well.
I wonder if hers were a smaller variety? I’ve had 2 fall this year. Since I already have a lot of hammocks - it’s easy for me to reuse them each year and support them. Thanks for watching!
Thank you! I’m really glad that I made that trellis. Both of them have worked really well and have stayed very sturdy. I hope you get yours done and let me know how it goes! Thanks for watching!
Depends on how sturdy it is and if you’re ok with it potentially causing damage to it? I used the cattle panels and they have worked well. What do you plan to do? Thanks for watching!
The space is about 10 feet x 10 feet. With about 15 cantaloupe plants. Each plant produced a 1-3 cantaloupes. More had I kept a better watch in them. Thanks for watching!
P S …. You know, it’s completely unnecessary to make hammocks for most trellised melons. I’ve never had one fall off and it gets pretty windy in my location.
I’ve had two fall off so I don’t mind making the hammocks. I’ve also found that occasionally when a animal eats part of one of them it’s always one that I haven’t put in a hammock yet. Thanks for watching!
I did a video experimenting with this. I had two fall off last month. They were larger ones and/or could have been from the wind. The hammocks are easy to do and work well for me. Thanks for watching!
What size bags are you using? Where did you locate them? Last year I just carefully propped the fruit up. This year I'm going to protect them a bit better.
The bags were from the grocery store. They had a cantaloupe in it when I bought it so I just reused the bags! It worked well. I also used hose to make hammocks and that works well. Thanks for commenting and for watching!
Hi, 👋👋👋 this video inspired me to grow cantaloupe this year for the very first tine. On a cattle panel. 😊 So far so good, there are some melons already a handful in size. Just today I noticed two vines showed brown on one side. The brown part is long, runs along one side of the vine for more than a foot. It almost looks like wounded and healed tomato stems, but it is not. And a few leaves on one of these vines seem to be affected as well. Parts of two leaves turn yellow and brown. What’s wrong? Fungal or something else?
Glad you liked the video! I have the same things each year with some parts of the vine turning brown. Could be many things. I find squash bugs/beetles I think they are called. I put up some yellow sticky sheets and that helps. Sometimes the plant still survives and the fruit makes it to ripe. Other times the whole vine slowly dies off. Thankfully, I plant several seeds and they grow up and go all over the cattle panel so if I lose a few I don’t worry about it that much. Hope you have a great harvest and thanks for watching!
I am getting ready to sow my melons this year so thanks for the tips. Do melons need direct sun (on the actual fruit) to improve ripening or is it all about the leaves?
I think it’s only the leaves that need the sun. Sometimes melons get covered in the tall grass and by all the vines and leaves anyway. Thanks for watching! Are you growing vertically this year?
@@TheTexasGardener Yes, I have four types of cucurbits I'm growing this year: galia, limelon, cantaloupe and La Diva cucumbers. I hope to imitate your successes. I still need to buy some tights though...
For fertilizer I’ve just been using compost and sometimes new garden bed soil with fertilizer in it. As for watering, I water about once a week unless it’s Summer and the heat is higher than usual. Then I’ll water when the soil is dry down several inches. Thanks for commenting and watching!
I have found using yellow sticky traps early in the season and throughout helps. 7:30 into this video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xB_yas5uD8A.htmlsi=ppxNbhSXImIwB0Eo Also spraying homemade insecticidal soap helps. Thanks for watching!
It rains rather often in our area, but it doesn’t impact the bee population at all. Try adding flowers in and around your garden-mine is always ‘swarming’ with honey bees, bumble bees and MANY other pollinators. You might also want to do a little homework on “companion planting” in your garden for the best effect and let “nature” be your pesticide. 👍
I plant them about 2 feet apart. I start them indoors in February and then transplant them outside into the vertical growing area. Each row is about 10 feet long and I put 5 plants per row about 2 feet apart. Are you growing vertical? Give it a try! Thanks for watching!
I made the trellis roughly 8 feet b 10 feet and made three rows. The t-posts are right along the border and plant rows are a few inches away from the cedar fence pickets. Thanks for watching!
You should be able to. I currently have several items growing in large containers. Apple tree, peach tree and an avocado tree are all doing well! Give it a try and let me know how it goes!
Yes I can. I’ll add it in the video as well. Here’s the link. This has worked out really well and I’m glad I did it. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9BYgIgSWnlk.html Thanks for watching!
I dug up the grass and then used two bags of basic garden bed soil from Lowe’s. Poured out each bag down the line to make a row. 1 bag for each row. That’s all I did this first year in this video. Hope that helps you!
@@TheTexasGardener Thank you, it sure did, I normally plant new Plants with Garden soil with great success too ,so this is right up my alley ,thanks again
They will climb on their own if they start growing towards the trellis but I always help them out anyway. As they start going out, I’ll take one of the vines and tie it up on the bottom of the trellis or weave it in between the panels. Thanks for watching!
This year I have not sprayed and have several cantaloupes growing. I have in the past had to occasionally spray with home made insecticidal soap. Thanks for watching!
@@elizabethtaylor9947 Absolutely! You don’t have to use the neem oil or the orange oil - if you just want the insecticidal soap then use only the dish soap and vegetable oil. Here’s what I use for a 1 gallon, 1.5 gallon and 32 oz spray bottles. 1 tbsp = 15ml. 1 gallon water 2 1/2 tablespoons dish soap 2 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 tablespoons neem oil extract 1 tbsp orange oil. 1.5 gallon water 3 3/4 tablespoons = 55ml dish soap 3 3/4 tablespoons = 55ml vegetable oil 3 tablespoons =45ml neem oil extract 1.5 tbsp = 22ml orange oil. Small 32 ounce bottle = 1/4 of gallon measurements. 10 ml dish soap 10 ml vegetable oil 5ml neem oil.
