That may work for one plant of each. Don't have more than one plant or most of the plants won't even fruit. A melon plant without fruit is a weed robbing light from the plants that do have fruit.

Can't agree with this statement.
Quote""Don't have more than one plant or most of the plants won't even fruit""
I grew mine 2 feet apart and got a tremendous amount of fruit.
It's not a good idea to move the trailing vines around, they don't like that.
Nip the growing tip at 4 leaves, creates more vines, equals more fruit.

You'll get just as many pounds off one plant in those small areas and the fruits will be bigger. It depends on what you are growing. Small fruited varieties or compact plants can be planted thicker.

Last year I got 100 watermelon averaging 27 lbs off 16 plants on a 22ft by 40 ft area. That's an average of 55 sq ft per plant not far from her 8x8 watermelon area.

Planting melons too thickly gives more and smaller fruit. And some vines can become unfruiting weeds.

If you give them water and fertilizer, why do they have smaller fruits if there are more plants? I'd LOVE to get 100 melons, mmmmm.
I like the idea of nipping them back to tailor them to the area though.

I had two unfruiting melons last year, and one of squash. First time ever this has happened. The other plants, I choose small fruiting varieties and had them in fairly small places (the roots) but I let the vines travel much father in the areas between the beds. We had some great fruit.

lucille:

If you let 100 fruit set in your small area, they will be the size of your fist. If that's what you want fine but to me that is hardly edible even for a cantaloupe. I have no use for small watermelon since I never put a whole watermelon in the frig. Cut out the useable portion which on a 25 lb watermelon is about 10 lbs at most. Throw away all the rind at once and put the flesh in a tuperware container. Much less mess.

Two 10 lb melons only yield as much useable flesh as one 20 lb if the rind is much thinner on the smaller fruit, simple geometry. And usually the rind is about the same thickness.

Fruitnut

I have 4x8 and 8x8 gardens. I don't believe I've said how many of each I have. You've made your point. Thanks.

You are planting in a garden, but I saw a container garden in a magazine, with melons.
The New York City gardener planted 2 inch poles in each 10 gallon pot & the vine grew up the pole.
To keep the heavy fruit from tearing away from the vine, he used pantyhose as a sling,tied to the pole to save space.
This works with smaller fruit, but I have never tried it with large fruit like melons.

I do believe in intensive gardening. The claim was made earlier in the thread that crowded plants would produce smaller fruit. I'm not sure that is a true claim, at least if there is enough room so the leaves don't shade out other leaves. If the plants have sufficient food and water, and enough sun, they should produce full size fruit.

lucille:

What you state is true. It's just that your small area won't produce 100 full size melons. Melons can produce about one pound per sq ft, maybe 1.5 max. It doesn't matter how much you fertilize or water, there is only enough sunlight, in full sun, to produce that yield. If you leave too many fruit they are going to be small.

And here's the more important point to me. Over watered and over fertilized melons are watery and not sweet.

lucille if you are OK with smaller variety melons there are some very tasty small melons that grow on compact vines that would work. I would give each of these 2'X2'. Eight plants would fit in a 4'X8' bed though you will get a little overhang of vines and melons over the sides.

The melons on this list are not so much Bush type but they do have very short vines compared to other melons. Generally in the 3-5' range. All of them are supposed to be some of the best tasting melons you can grow. None are not large melons though.

Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe
Yellow Doll Watermelon
Honey Bun Cantaloupe
Emerald Gem Spice Melon

thisisme, thanks for the list, my mother love the small "Sugar Babies". I plant them in rows because I have the space.
I will try your list.

I may try them next year as well, but I already ordered my melon seeds for this year, I bought:

Watermelon Shiny Boy
Amy
Lambkin
Magnifisweet

I have 4x8 and 8x8 contiguous beds for a total of 640 sq feet dedicated just to the melons.

Lucille, I am by no means an expert at melon growing but do grow them every year. This is how I do it from advice of one of the experts on these forums.

In the area closest to the fence each one of those clumps of vines is actually two melon plants spaced 1 foot apart, one on each side of the drip line and the two clumps are spaced 5 feet apart. I space ten feet between varieties.

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This is not even the end of the season and I mow everything that hits the lawn on this side of the fence and it is alot.I also trim everything that goes down the isle on the other side.
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This pile was only about 3/4 of the actual harvest from that planting.
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My melon area that year was about 115'x11'. in that area I had I believe 16 watermelon, 6 cantaloupes and 1 pumpkin vine. My whole garden is on drip irrigation and all of my vines get 3 gallons of water every day until 2 weeks before harvest. The loupes and watermelons(Summer Flavor 420) are the sweetest things I have ever eaten. I do cull all watermelons after I get enough of them at a specific size. Even if I find one that is like 5 to 8 lbs when the others are up to 15 and 20 I cull the small one. I think that is the key to getting larger melons. That year i got two at 50 lbs. and most around 30+lbs for the larger varieties. I don't know if it's right but it works.

Dale

Wow, Dale, that's impressive. Beautiful melons, and quite a wonderful youngster as well:)

jolj there is now a Bush Sugar Baby too.

lucille I see you are not afraid to stray from standard melons. Some of those produce fairly small fruit like the ones I recommended. Sometimes good things come in small packages though. I think I could go for the Amy Melon. The Canary Melon I am growing this season is a standard. If I had found Amy I think I would have gone with her. I may still. Thank you.

Dale I dream of having space like that to grow in. Your Garden looks simply beautiful.

Dale:

You are at 55 sq ft per vine. The exact same number I gave several posts back. My patch last year looked just like yours.

Beeman I'm going with the vine trimming for the big guys and every 2 feet for the little guys. We'll see how it goes.

Dale I have over an acre of land for garden & berry plants & I do not plant that many melons. That looks like my Dads patch. He had a few 50lbs ones, but mostly 15-20 lbs.