Handling Winter Melons
Categories: Vegetable GrowingGive particulars regarding harvesting, storaging, and shipment of winter
melons. How do you harvest and pack them for distant market?
There is no particular system in the handling of winter melons. They are
gathered into piles on ground where water will not gather and covered
with the trash of the vines on which they grow. They will keep for
months in this way, as our autumn temperatures do not freeze them. Other
growers collect them in open sheds shaded from sun and rain, and still
others put them into barns or shallow cellars under buildings, etc. The
melons are very durable and seem disposed to keep in any old way. The
melons are shipped in large packing cases with slat sides, or in the
smaller slat crates that are used for summer cantaloupes. No packing is
used, generally. If it seemed necessary, a little clean straw would be
sufficient.
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