I have never had much luck with cantaloupe. If I got the plants to grow and actually produce fruit, some rat or other gnawing creature would get to them first. So when a kind, elderly nurseryman gave two of my kids a small peat pot each last spring, and told them that under the soil was an Ambrosia cantaloupe seed, I just smiled and said thank you.
Well, Anna and Collin diligently watered and cared for their seeds and before long there were plants in the pots. Collin had one and Anna's pot had two little cantaloupe plants. They began asking to transplant them into the main garden and since I had a space that was going to rest under a foot of hay this season, I told them they could plant them there. You see, it didn't really matter where they planted them because they weren't going to make it anyway (Ahem, I (in a rare stroke of wisdom) never shared my negative thinking with the kids, not wanting to discourage anyone.).
So we planted them out. Without even thinning Anna's pot to just one plant because she didn't have the heart and neither did I. To my surprise they did grow. And grow! When there were 8 baby cantaloupes on the vines, I began to tell the kids that indeed something may get to them before we did, so be prepared. But nothing did, and we ended up eating each and every one of those amazingly sweet loupes.
But that is not where this little story ends. Once the fruit was picked, the vines looked thin and tired and I quit watering them thinking I would soon be pulling them up and making room for something for fall. Just about then, it started to rain. You see, the long drought we had been experiencing was ending and it rained and rained. Suddenly, those cantaloupe vines found new life and they began to grow. They grew up and over the nearby tomato cages (and tons of grass!) and out of their bed into the next one. And they were covered in new flowers!
Now we are on round two of these amazing plants. We have found several large (I mean crazy large) fruits and are beginning to harvest and eat (with no rat teeth marks!) cantaloupe again. The tomato cages that gave us tomatoes in May, now have cantaloupes hanging from them in August. Crazy, I tell you.
