The Hales Best Jumbo Melon is a local market and home grown favorite. This cantaloupe was developed by a Japanese market gardener in California and became widely popular because it combined excellent flavor with earliness. This beautiful oval melon has a deep green skin and golden netting with a very appealing salmon colored flesh. Hales Best Jumbo is an aromatic melon that is truly a sweet treat!
The deep fine grained green flesh of the Rocky Ford Green Flesh has a crisp, fresh taste. This small melon is 5.5x5" diameter, weighing 2-3 lbs. Rocky Ford Green Flesh's skin has a heavy net that is slightly ribbed. Overall, this cantaloup is very rust resistant, prolific, and good for home gardens and local markets. This melon is also good shipper.
The Hearts of Gold actually has a heart of deep-orange, "golden" flesh that is thick and sweet! This variety produces high quality melons that are sweet, juicy and fragrant. The Hearts of Gold's rinds are thin, heavily netted and medium ribbed. This prolific producer's round, medium-sized, 2-3 lb. fruits are a popular commercial cantaloupe in the Midwest.
The Tuscany Melon is a cantaloupe that has beauty and taste! This melon's flesh is one of the most flavorful muskmelons available. Originating in Italy, the deeply ribbed 3-5 lb. Tuscany has a small seed cavity and fine rind. This variety is very high in vitamin C and vitamin A, making it very nutritious! Tuscany is also a great storing cantaloupe that will keep up to 2 weeks if refrigerated.
The Banana Melon gets its name for being a banana-shaped fruit with smooth yellow skin and even a mouth-watering banana smell! This melon variety has a sweet, spicy salmon flesh that is delicious. This heirloom is an all time favorite for being very sweet and perfect for specialty markets.
One of the earliest Eastern Shipper varieties. Be the first to harvest melons for home eating or markets. Mature to 4-5lbs and have excellent, juicy flavor. Intermediate resistance to Fusarium wilt races 0–2 and powdery mildew.
Olympic Express is an early maturity melon that is good for mid season growing. This variety has great taste, excellent firmness and very good interior color.
Planters Jumbo is a great tasting cantaloupe that has a firm rind, smooth heavy netting, and thick deep orange flesh. This melon is 7x6" diameter, 4-4.5 lb. and is Powdery and Downy Mildew resistant. Planters Jumbo grows on a vigorous vine does well in drought or high rainfall. This melon is perfect for both home or local market growing.
Edisto 47 is a large melon with a wonderfully sweet flavor! This variety is a popular salmon-fleshed melon that is mildly sweet and produces strong yields. Edisto 47 has a high sugar content and is a great disease resistant variety.
The Pike melon is a very sweet melon variety that was bred in the 1930s. The sweet fragrant fruit is heavily netted on the outside with a juicy orange flesh. These melons can weigh 3-6 pounds depending on growing conditions.
The Prescott Fond Blanc Melon is an old French heirloom variety that produces the most fragrant aroma when grown properly. This variety has a bumpy outer shell, making it look more squash than melon! However, its flesh is a dark salmon orange with a juicy sweet flavor. This variety prefers a hot, dry growing season and is best when picked slightly green and ripened indoors.
Sugar Cube is a personal-size melon with explosive sweet flavor. Produces an abundance of uniform, heavily netted 2.5 lb. fruits the size of a grapefruit. Flesh has a dark-orange appearance that is crisp to the bite. Sugar Cube is highly disease resistant and provides an exceptionally long harvest window. Well-suited for northern and southern regions. High resistance to Fusarium wilt races 0–2, powdery mildew, and watermelon mosaic virus; intermediate resistance to papaya ringspot virus and zucchini yellow mosaic virus.
This highly aromatic melon is prized for its rich sweetness, complex flavor, and dependable disease resistance. Attractive, ribbed fruits typically weigh 3–5 pounds and develop on vigorous, healthy vines with excellent productivity. Best harvested at full slip—when the fruit releases easily from the vine—this Cornell University–bred “chef’s melon” delivers exceptional eating quality with sugar levels reaching up to 14° Brix. The fruit holds well after harvest and combines gourmet flavor with a strong, well-rounded resistance package, including intermediate resistance to Fusarium wilt (races 0 and 1), papaya ringspot virus, powdery mildew, watermelon mosaic virus, and zucchini yellow mosaic virus, making it a reliable choice for both home and market growers.
This Eastern-type melon stands out for its extended post-harvest storage compared to other varieties in its class, without sacrificing the rich flavor and smooth texture growers and consumers expect. Fruits average 5–7 pounds and develop excellent sweetness, reaching about 13% Brix. At maturity, melons show full color change and slip cleanly from the vine, signaling peak harvest readiness. The variety also offers dependable field performance with intermediate resistance to Fusarium wilt (races 0, 1, and 2) and powdery mildew (races 1 and 2), making it a reliable choice for quality and shelf life.
Afterglow is a distinctive Eastern-type melon that blends the durability and appearance of Eastern shippers with the exceptional eating quality of Tuscan genetics. It produces uniform, refined fruit averaging 5–7 pounds, with very firm, thick orange flesh and excellent flavor balanced by high sugar levels of 12–14% Brix. The rind closely resembles a classic Eastern melon, though the pronounced sutures retain a touch of green at maturity. Fruits slip cleanly from the vine when ripe and offer improved field holding ability compared to traditional sutured types. Afterglow delivers a reliable, uniform harvest of attractive melons with outstanding sweetness and rich, classic melon flavor.
Honey Rock is a great tasting, early maturing heirloom melon with good yields of quality fruit. This melon variety produces compact 3-4 lbs fruits that are early to mature in just 80 days! Honey Rock's flesh is a tender salmon-orange hue with a delicate sweet taste, no wonder it was an AAS winner for 1933! This small melon is a good size for an early melon.
Dulce Nectar Honeydew is super sweet with extra juicy flesh. Ripens midseason and grows well in a wide range of climates. Does well in hot weather and poor soil conditions. Produces oval, smooth and a creamy shade of white, with pale green flesh within. Once ripe these melons will harvest between 5 to 6 pounds melons. Resistant to powdery mildew and tobacco mosaic virus.
Rockstar is a dependable second-early Eastern shipper that combines excellent eating quality with the disease resistance needed for consistent, high yields. Plants produce uniform, attractive fruit averaging 5–7 pounds, with lightly sutured rinds and medium netting that hold up well for fresh market and shipping. Inside, the firm, bright orange flesh delivers reliably high sugar levels and a satisfying texture. Strong holding ability and intermediate resistance to powdery mildew (races 1 and 2) and Fusarium wilt (races 0, 1, and 2) make Rockstar a reliable performer in the field. This well-balanced variety is a solid addition to any melon program focused on quality, yield, and dependable harvest timing.
