Congrats on the canteloupe. Mine were all killed by flea beetles. :-(

A simple, cheap way I've heard of (not having canteloupe of my own to try this on) is to just slip a square of cardboard under the melon so it doesn't touch the soil. I've also heard of slipping the developing melons into pantyhose or nylons (like knee highs) and then tying them to the trellis/support.

I am trellising my cantaloupe and the vines are really long, i have many baby cantaloupe, but they are all only about the size of a dime, congrats on yours that is great! i hope mine catch up soon. here is a picture of my trellis, someone told me that the melon will never grow to a weight heavier than it can hold itself so i do not plan on creating slings for them unless something drastic happens... i also am not planning on having gigantic melons. good luck to you! sarah
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Sarah,

How tall are your trellis's and how many plants are there per trellis? I'd like to do the same next year.

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I just went outside to put some cardboard under my melons and instead of 3, I found 5!! Thanks for the suggestion Lilacs!

the trellises are made w/8 ft sections of 3/4" wood. i just put one in each corner and brought them together like a teepee. after tying them i did go back and put screws in to stabilize them in wind and rain (i have them in raised beds). it was so simple, although the whole neighborhood was wondering about the teepees in april while nothing else was in the garden. it was easy, inexpensive and very functional, although i have to go out almost everyday and tie up the loose vines, it seems like everytime i tie one up another one decides to start growing. I have cantaloupe and watermelon growing in the same bed, i dropped down four pieces of twine and attached them to the bed (you could stake them in the ground if you arent using beds)and i planted one plant at each twine/pole, so i have 8 plants in one bed. i did the same thing with my cukes and peas, but with the peas i have 16 plants. this is my first year with this system, so far so good.
PEAS- 16 plants
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CUKES-can u believe this is only 8 plants!!!
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in this last picture you can see the entire trellis....
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That looks MAGNIFICIENT. I love it. If anyone else hasn't said it yet, believe me, all the effort I can see there was worth it. Functional, beautiful, pleasing.

Clock

clock... thanks, i can honestly say ive done it wrong enough times to warrant doing it right!! i realized that more effort doing it right the first time saves you so much effort doing it over and over and over and still getting NOTHING!! 15-20 min a day or every few days tying them up is enjoyable, since i love spending time in there anyways. happy gardening!! sarah

watch them fruits, they take a bit to mature but over ripen and get soft very quickly. watch the netting on the melon, when it starts to appear and gets deeper, they're ripe.

I ended up with 36 over ripe cantelopes last year, yeah I guess I planted too much, it was a big mess, picture fridge filled with bowls of cut up cantelope.... it was gooood tho'

I've got cantaloupe too! I can't believe how fast they are growing. I was gone for a couple of days and my are about baseball sized too. I have mine trellised in a square foot garden. I may sling them as they get bigger as we get a lot of wind here. I"d hate to have them knocked off prematurely by the wind.

I just went out to pick some spinach and noticed I've got 2 more, for a total of 5! Being that I'm more of a fruit consumer, I can already taste them. Yummy!!!

Now, if one the watermelon would start fruiting.... But I guess, it'll be a couple more weeks because I don't have any flowers on them yet. My cucs started to flower about 5 days ago, but no fruit yet.

If the cardboard also stays too soggy then a matting of pine needles will do the trick as they dry out faster.

vgka.... I think, I'm going to get me some pine needles.. I've got 3 pine trees I really don't like, so it'll give me an excuse to strip the needles off of one of them. Can I use them while the needles are still green or do I have to used dried needles?

Hopefully, I'll only have 2 pines left after that. :)