My melons did badly - the vines seem stunted and the leaves smaller and browner than they ought - some of the vines died outright.
They were in an irrigated raised bed in a community garden. Someone else there planted melons in ground he just broke and they’re doing so much better, even with weeds all over. I wonder why.
I picked the last three melons ahead of the community groundhog and I’m planning to pull the vines and put in some fall plantings - sugar peas, beets, kale, lettuce.
Someone on this thread told me last year that although beets like growing cool, they like germinating warm, so they’re easier in the fall than the spring. We shall see.
I hope you’re right about the beets. I’ve got some I plan to plant for human and some mangels for my chickens. Maybe your melons had a soil disease? Maybe a different more resistant variety in the other plot?
I can’t WAIT for the fall veg to hit my kitchen. I stirfry most of that stuff.
Start with a piece or two of bacon, chopped into tiny pieces and sautee that.
Take it out of the pan when it’s little crispy bacon bits and add a quarter or half an onion (small dices) and/or shallot and/or some freshly grated garlic.
When that’s a little golden I add a couple chicken breasts cut into small chunks, some fresh grated ginger (so easy to grow as a houseplant and outside on a porch or patio in direct sun in the summer!) and cook with a little soy saucefor a bit then add shredded cabbage, snow peas, broccoli bits and maybe some kohlrabi shreds or dices, shredded carrots, jalapeno bits, etc & whatever else I have that sounds good in a stirfry. Cook till chicken is done and greens are how they suit you.
And the costs for the whole thing is just the single slice of bacon and the 2 chicken breasts. A deep cast iron chicken fryer full of this will feed myself and my husband for 2 or 3 meals. He likes to take it and roll it up in a wrap too. YMMV.