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Cucurbitaceae
CUCUMIS melo 'Honey I Dew'
Honey I Dew Honeydew, Honeydew
The sweet flesh of 'Honey-I-Dew' is white and blushed with salmon-orange towards the center. This vigorous hybrid has oval fruits with smooth, golden yellow skin. It takes approximately 86 days to produce harvestable fruits, and summer warmth needs to last for at least ten weeks for fruit production. Mature fruits reach 3 to 4 pounds.
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.
Honeydew melons should be harvested when the skin on the fruit’s underside changes from white to yellow. The fruits should also have sweet-smelling skin and emit a hollow sound if knocked.
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
5'-12' / 1.5m - 3.7m
Indeterminate
Africa
Neutral
Well Drained
Loam
Fast
Average Water
Vining/Climbing
Summer, Fall
Showy
Yellow
White, Yellow, Salmon
Green
Dark Green
No
Yes
Single
Coarse
Matte
Edible, Fruit / Fruit Tree, Herb / Vegetable, Vine
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