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All-America Selections
Cucurbitaceae
CUCUMIS melo 'Amy'
Canary Melon
This 2004 All-America Selections Winner boasts lovely compact melons with beautiful golden yellow skin, small seed cavities and sweet ivory flesh. The prolific vines of this canary melon are resilient and produce lots of 2 to 3 pound fruits that are ready for harvest around 70 days after planting. They are also more compact than average, making them well-suited to smaller garden spaces.
Melons are tropical annual vines with long, spreading stems that cling via springy tendrils. Their big lobed leaves are coarse, fuzzy and medium to deep green. Bright yellow, funnel-shaped flowers are produced when the vines reach maturity. The flowers are monoecious, meaning separate male and female yellow flowers appear on each vine. The pollen producing male flowers open first, followed by the female flowers, which have distinctive bulbous ovaries at their bases. Only the female flowers produce melons and each must be pollinated by bees for fruit set, so be sure to encourage these productive garden insects.
For best performance, plant melons in full sun and friable, fertile, deep soil with good drainage. Vines should be planted after the danger of frost has passed. It is common practice to create mounds of soil to grow melons in. The seed can be directly sown in ground. Melons need space to grow and should be surrounded by a layer of straw to protect the fruits from rot and keep weeds at bay. If space is limited, they can be grown on a trellis and fruits supported with cloth slings. Heavy rains can cause ripe fruits on the vine to split and lose sweetness.
Canary melons are best harvested when the skin turns deep yellow, develops fragrant skin and emits a hollow sound when knocked. This cultivar stores fairly well but is still best eaten shortly after harvest.
12 - 4
2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
Fruit
Full Sun
8"-14" / 20.3cm - 35.6cm
4'-5' / 1.2m - 1.5m
Indeterminate
Hybrid Origin, Africa
Neutral
Well Drained
Loam
Very Fast
Average Water
Vining/Climbing
Summer, Fall
Showy
Yellow
White, Yellow, Gold, Tan, Sandy Brown
Green, Light Green
Yes
No
Single
Coarse
Matte
Edible, Fruit / Fruit Tree, Herb / Vegetable, Vine
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