Hi welcome to Asiangarden2table.
Fuzzy melon, also called hairy gourd is very popular
in South of China and other Asian countries.
It is a variety of Winter melon
and usually has smaller size and is grown for young fruits.
Fuzzy melon, in Chinese medicine,
is considered to be cool and can relieve heat in body.
So it is great vegetables in summer
and is used in many stir-fry, soup and stew recipes.
Fuzzy melon seeds have very hard shell
and can take one to three weeks to sprout,
depending on seed freshness and environment temperature.
Sow the seeds in potting mix and keep it moist the whole time.
Fuzzy melon’s seedlings grow slowly.
The higher temperature the faster it grows.
When it finally grows about 5 leaves, it will speed up its growth.
It is the best time to transplant in garden.
Or the seedlings will grow vines quickly.
Add a lot of fertilizer, turn over the soil
and bury the fertilizer deep.
Plant fuzzy melon at least two feet apart and 3~4 feet wide.
Fuzzy melon likes warm and hot weather.
The best temperature is 70~85 degree.
At temperature lower than 60 F, it grows slowly.
At temperature high than 90 F,
plenty of water is needed for fuzzy melon to grow well.
As soon as fuzzy melon grows vines. You should start pruning.
Without proper pruning, fuzzy melon will grow too many vines into everywhere,
and waste its nutrients on un-necessary leaves and branches.
Here are two types of pruning methods you can consider.
Single vine or double vines.
Fuzzy melon can fruit on both main vine and side vines.
For single vine, remove all the side sprouts,
keep the vine lay on ground until baby fruits are seen on the shoots,
then direct the vine up to trellis.
Keep 2~3 baby fruits and 2~3 leaves after, remove the tip.
If your fuzzy melon plant is vivid and have a enough space,
twin vines pruning is good option.
Remove the tip when fuzzy melon grows about 1ft.
Wait for several days to grow side vines,
keep two strong ones and remove the rest of them.
Treat each vine as a single plant and prune as method above.
A well grown fuzzy melon plant can usually produce total 4~5 fruits.
Each vine can only grow 1~2 fruits at the same time.
Even you see many baby fruits show up.
Most of them won’t be able to make it to flower.
Some do flower and grow into fruit.
But Only 1~2 on the same vine can grow big
and the rest will turn yellow and rotten.
To pollinate fuzzy melon, pick a male flower,
fold the leaves back and gently touch female flower.
When fuzzy melon fruits, it needs a lot of water and nutrients.
Spread some 10-10-10 fertilizer and mix with top soil.
Do it every time when new fruit is growing.
Young fuzzy melon is very crunchy and juicy.
You can start to pick it when it gets to about a pound.
After the first pick, the vine has nutrients to grow new melon.
Keep two strong side vines. Let them grow until baby fruits show up,
keep two fruits and two leaves after then remove the tip.
One or two of them will grow into full size.
Some varieties tend to grow side vines from middle or top part of main vine,
some from the part on ground. Both will work.
Trim out any yellow leaves and extra vines without fruit.
Keep these three things in mind you will make your fuzzy melon grow more fruits:
prune right, pick young fruits and supplement fertilizer properly.
Don’t worry if you do not pick fuzzy melon in time.
The melon will just grow bigger, and the skin gets harder.
Matured fuzzy melon’s weight can vary from few pounds to
more than 15 pounds depending on varieties.
At the end it will be coated with a white powder.
Carefully pick the matured fuzzy melon, keep them dry and cool.
They can be stored like winter melon up to 6 months.
One of the best vegetable stock for winter consuming.
When fuzzy melon leaves turn yellow, new shoots get less and thin,
it is time to remove the old vines.
The old vines are easy to have bugs and diseases
and won’t grow good quality of fruits.
So you should not keep in your garden.
Thank you for watching. By the way,
we are selling Asian vegetable seeds on
asiangarden2table.com under “shop”.
Over 40 different vegetables are for sale now.
I have grown all of them and now recommend to you.
Videos and pictures from the day I sow and the day I harvest,
will be shared later. Please stop by and order.
Thank you for your support. See you next time.