Missouri Gold Melon

This is a delicious and easy to grow melon. I trialed a few muskmelons this year and this one was a winner. Great flavor, perfect amount of sweetness. Grows easily in Missouri, which is no surprise given the name. Yield is about 2 per plant for me. The best part is this melon tells you when it's ripe by changing to a light yellow color on the rind.

I had high hopes for this "old-timer" but was very disappointed. While the vines grew long and the plants put out a lot of fruit (prob 3 per plant), every single melon I picked was complete mush inside. The outside would appear normal, with no appearance of any bug disturbance, but when cut open, the inside was very watery and almost foul smelling. The chickens liked them...I never tasted a one.

This melon is wonderful. I grew three vines in my garden area and have dozens of melons growing nicely. We started picking this week and have shared with friends and family. Sweet, yellow flesh, each melon so far has averaged 2-3lbs. This will be in my garden again next year.

We grew 15 melon types in 5 gallon containers last summer. This one was sampled by our family and my husband's work and got a thumbs up from all taste-testers with its strong muskmelon flavor. It took 28 days from the time it sprouted for it to flower and 84 days from sprouting to our first ripe melon. For those who might want to start early indoors, at 28 days from sprouting, the vine measured 27 inches long. This melon turns a beautiful whitish color a couple of days before it is able to slip easily. Ours had a very noticeable crack all the way around the stem when it was ripe. This was a beautiful melon to watch develop and had a really nice fragrance, too. Our melon weighed in at 2 pounds.

I was so excited to try this rare melon. It germinated well and the vines were beautiful. The flesh was firm and had a wonderful cantaloupe flavor, not overly sweet. This was the last melon in my garden to ripen, but it was also the last to die out at the end of the season. Needs to be picked quickly when ripe. It won't last long on the vine.