"Keith (Dorset)" wrote in message
Once again ths year I am getting quite a few of my tiny melons
(Cantaloupe), turning yellow and 'dying off at a very early stage - when
they are about the size of a de-podded French bean.

I do get some that reach maturity every, but most 'wilt' like this.

I suspected it may be due to irregular or underwatering, but this still
persists.

The plants are 9in pots, in proper growing compost (some have some garden
compost added), and they are out of draughts in a warm, unheated
greenhouse.

I live in Australia so my advice won't be at all UK specific but I also live
in what is considered a cold climate with a short (for cantaloups) growing
season so that would have some relevance to you.

Someone who lived in the UK posted here some time ago, just before the
beginning of my growing season, to say that they had successfully grown
cantaloups outside in the previous UK summer and managed to get them to
fruit and that they were truly delicious.

This post inspired me to have another go here in the summer just past so I
did some research and I managed to produce some fruit which was superb but I
had some management issues (drought/poor growing position in poor soil).
Anyway, this is what I found out and I intend to correct my mistakes next
summer. I figure that if someone in the UK can grow them outside, I
certainly should be able to grow them here.

Treat them as you would cucumbers. Good rich soil, same watering
requirements and similarly subject to powdery mildew.

I think your 9" pots would be too small as they are relativeley gross
feeders. If you can manage to get cucumbers to grow outside where you live,
might I suggest that you also try grwoing some outside as well as in the
greenhouse. Feed them well and get a watercolour paintbrush and shove it
inside ever flower to make sure the things get fertilised as the flowers
really are quite small and insignificant.

I got to the state with mine where I was very cross with them doing nothing
and decided that they were duds so I used to mutter darkly at them as I
wandered by and I didn't given them the care they should have had. One day
by pure luck, I noticed that there was a fist sized fruit on one of the
plants and when I went looking there were lots of fruit hiding in the
leaves. These were pathetic looking plants in comparison to the normal
vigour I expected from the 'vine' tribe so I found out that I had
underestimated their capacity to crop.