Create a DIY melon Hell to improve your garden soil and reduce watering needs in a few simple steps .
picture : Leonid Eremeychuk / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
Melons , squash , andpumpkinsare great feeder and tight - growing industrial plant that can quickly sweep over small gardens with their sprawling vines and high-pitched nutrient needs . But if you rise these demanding plants in a bare DIY melon pit , you may redeem a muckle of infinite in your garden and make your crops light to keep . Here are the basics of why melon pits are deserving making , and a unproblematic step - by - stair tutorial on creating your own melon orchestra pit and planting it with melons and other crop you love .
What Is a Melon Pit?
establish on a planting method first develop by American indigenous tribes , melon pits are made by burying food and yard waste material in the grime and then implant crop on top . The idea is bare : As the organic matter breaks down , itenriches the filth , prey flora , and provides other benefits to gardens .
Although melon pits are commonly used for growing melons , they also support a wide variety of other heavy alimentation crop , like squash , corn , sunflowers , autumn pumpkin , and even yield trees . This planting technique shares manysimilarities with hugelkultur , trench composting , andlasagna gardening . It is peculiarly pop amongpermaculture enthusiastsand organic growers who require to develop plant without semisynthetic fertilizers .
Benefits of Melon Pits
Melon pits are straightaway and easy to make , and they offer a long ton of benefits to garden . Not only are they a great agency to repurpose kitchen and yard waste , but melon pit also :
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How to Create a Melon Pit
All you demand to produce a melon pit is a shovel , some food for thought garbage and railyard wastefulness , and about 30 proceedings . Most melon Hell are big enough for two to three melon vine plants . If you desire to grow more melon or other harvest , palpate complimentary to extend the size of your melon pit or make multiple “ pit ” throughout your garden .
1. Choose a Suitable Location
Choose a location that receive enough sun for the plant you ’d like to raise . melon and most other food crops arefull - sun plantsthat require at least 6 to 8 hours of lineal ignitor per day to be productive . Leafy Green River will also grow in areas with lower light . melon and autumn pumpkin are large , trailing plant , so check that there ’s enough space in the area for the vine to spread out .
you may place a melon vine pit even in areas with poor land because you will be amending the filth when you create your melon pit .
2. Dig a Hole
Remove any grass and weeds in the country . Then labour a golf hole about 2 to 3 feet mystifying and about 1 foot bass .
3. Add Organic Matter
amass up any constitutional issue that you have available : sticks , twigs , autumn parting , pasture clippings , stock manure , kitchen scraps , and other solid food permissive waste . Any material that aresafe to lend to a compost binare fair game . keep off meat , bone , dairy farm , favorite waste from Caterpillar and hot dog , and works debris that contain weed killer , or weeds that have gone to seed .
interchangeable tofilling a raise seam , bring uncouth materials like sticks and twigs to the root word of the pit , and finer cloth towards the top .
4. Fill in with Soil
When you ’re done , your melon vine infernal region should be filled most of the way up with constitutive topic with just a few inch of empty space at the top of the pitfall . satiate it with the soil you dig up from the hole , and heap any persist soil up above the kettle of fish to form a planting mound . If your soil was poor to begin with , you may need towork some compost into the excavated soil . Remove any rock and bits of weed roots that might still be in the grime .
5. Water
After constructing your melon pit , water the region soundly and profoundly . This will fill in any air pockets in the melon pit and help the organic issue commence to settle and break-dance down .
6. Plant
you could imbed melon pits as soon as you make them , or await a few weeks to give the organic matter fourth dimension to pop out decomposing .
For melon of any eccentric , plant about 3 to 4 melon source per 1 - foot broad pit and then thin out all but the strongest 1 or 2 seedling when the plants are about 4 inches tall . For other crops , such as pumpkins , follow the planting and space way on your seed packets .
7. Care for Your Plants
Once your seedling sprout , addmulch around your plantsto keep weeds down . If you ’re develop vining plant , such as pumpkins , also apply mulch or layers of composition board in a wider , 6 - animal foot circle around your pit to keep weed from tangling around the vines of your plants as they grow .
For melon vine pit , follow the same golden rule of crop gyration as for all other garden bottom : Never implant crops of the same menage in the same location two geezerhood in a quarrel to avoid industrial plant disease and pest that overwinter in the soil . If you do n’t have another location to put a melon pit , the next yr , remove the entire pitcher and the soil from the trap and refill it with fresh materials .
Credit:Photo: Leonid Eremeychuk / Getty Images
