A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 cantaloupe question. . .

hey there, these buggers want to flower so freakin bad!!!! I've been going with the rule of thumb for tomatoes and have been picking off the flowers due to the fact that these guys only have a sprawl length of MAYBE 8". Should i let these buggers flower and fruit? or let them get bigger? Thanx!

They'll probably only send out male flowers for a while anyway Danno. So it's up to you really. The female flowers will come later, once the plant is ready to reproduce.

whoa bud you lost me! How can i tell the differencfe between male & female flowers? When these flower, they have a tube behind them that looks almost like a mini cucumber if i let it grow big enuff.

And maybe its a "just becuz" answer. . but what is the difference between male & female flowers? Obviously females pollinate? And when is this process usually carried out?

Sorry to hit u with so many questions. . but does it harm the plant's growth at all if i leave these pretty lil flowers be? My squash, zuchini, cukes AND cantaloupe are all doing this

Thx longy!

When these flower, they have a tube behind them that looks almost like a mini cucumber if i let it grow big enuff.
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OK, shows what i know dunnit.
They're female if they have an embryo fruit behind the flower. They require pollination by a male flower in order to set the fruit. Bees will normally do this for you. The males are similar but they don't have the little fruit and with most cucurbitae are on a longer stalk. You can take off a male flower, remove the petals and pollinate the female by hand. Do so in the mornings, (just because), and get the flowers when they are fresh looking.
This is the case for all the vegies you mentioned.
I'm not a big fan of removing the flowers off anything in the vegie patch, so i'd leave them on there. I always figure if they're ready to produce then i'll let them. (However, with citrus, for example, i'm all for removing the fruit for the first few years but they aint annuals.)

heheh and this is why i post these questions here thnx longy for the info. . . its a TON of help!

I don't disbud anything but new citrus trees either. Not even strawberries, and from new plants that got HUGE, I'm picking berries almost every day.

Im just gonna let nature take its course and let my cantalope get pollinated by bugs and stuff.