King Tutankhamen loved watermelons so much that one is painted on his tomb. Ancient Greeks and Romans (probably) indulged in melons of various kinds, chilling them with snow carried for days from high mountains. Hippocrates advised putting the cold rind of melons on the heads of kids with heat stroke. Chinese lovers might give a cool melon in summer. Mark Twain declared in Pudd'nhead Wilson, ''When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.''
Nor will you repent if you grow melons in Canberra. Summer melons, cold from the fridge, are good. Freshly picked melons, slightly chilled or sun warm, are glorious and subtly scented, so full of flavour you will need a napkin for your drool, as well as for their juices. You cannot really understand the lure of melons till you have eaten one that had been picked fully ripe, and not been chilled and carted hundreds or thousands of kilometres.
You may, with luck, find melons like that at farmers markets. To be sure of getting your fair share this summer, plant your own melons now. This is the perfect year to plant just about everything in a Canberra garden. Except, just possibly, melons.
Melons love heat, and light. This spring has been cool, and wet (thank goodness). Your melons may not be happy. They will be even less happy if they alternate between damp to wet, and hot and dry, as these are perfect conditions for downy mildew to attack the leaves, leaving you with a wilting or quickly dead vine and sad little unripe melons that even the chooks will ignore.
There are ways to combat this. First of all, give your melons space, with as little greenery around them as possible, but a good mulch like sugar cane to stop spores splashing up.
Secondly, let your melons climb. I plant ours next to reinforcing mesh, firmly staked, and train the melons up, around and up again. Unlike climbing beans, melons don't usually climb without some help, except for chilacayote melon, which is more like a choko and will happily clamber over a backyard dunny or up and over a lemon tree.
Third - choose a variety that is fast maturing and mildew resistant. This will probably mean buying seeds from a seed company or nursery that offers choice. But in a cool or cloudy summer, only fast maturing varieties will give you a decent - and flavourful - crop.
And feed and water. If we get a week without rain, you may think the melons can stay a bit thirsty for a while. Water them - and water the stem only, not the leaves. Melons may not like damp weather, but they respond very badly indeed to ''too much'' followed by ''too little'' and then ''too much'' again. Counterintuitively, the more rain melons get, the more you need to water them in hot dry times.
But grow them. You won't necessarily get melon vines invading your lawn or rose garden, as a Queensland Blue pumpkin vine might. Melon vines are smaller, reasonably well behaved, and as previously stated, grow best in our climate if grown upwards, not along the ground.
I'm not quite sure what melon varieties we are going to be munching come January/February and into autumn - I forgot to keep the seed packets. But there are at least four kinds, each one bred to mature fast in cool seasons. And they will be delightful.
This week I am:
- Watching the cherries fatten and muttering at any parrot or bower bird that seems to be eyeing the crop too.
- Still loving every single moment of asparagus season, except when I overcook them by 10 seconds and they become slimy, instead of tender but crisp.
- Discovering that the chook shed is covered in small red roses. Actually, I wasn't the one who noticed. ''Grandma,'' he said suspiciously, ''Someone has put flowers all over the hen house.'' The someone was me, about five years ago, and for five years the rambling rose did nothing much. But with rain and access to hen manure, it has leapt up and over and will shade the hens all summer.
- Deciding I love Iceberg roses as long as they give lots, which Iceberg usually do. I know Icebergs are the 'bath salts and socks' of the rose world, planted by those who haven't yet discovered other roses to adore. But their leaves are bright green and disease resistant and there are about a hundred white blooms just out the window as I type this, and I can truly say 'I adore Icebergs', at least when there are a dozen other colours of rose around them.
- Stopping the kiwi fruit from invading the bedroom again.
- Eating many mulberries, and a few loquats, and listening to the digestive noises of Possum X who feasts on rain-fat loquats most of the night.
