Question for those of you who have grown Joseph’s muskmelon landrace. I started mine late in the season trying for a fall crop and they were absolutely devastated by pickle worms. The only one that survived to ripening was around 12lbs. Which was by far the biggest cantaloupe that It produced. Has anyone else noticed large size cantaloupes from this landrace?
I grew quite a few of those melons from the Buffalo seed company and they were small regular sized 4" diameter to 7ish" Mostly round with a few leaning towards football shaped. Wish I had more photos of those. Mostly single melon per plant with 2 plants having like 5 melons. But I am not in melon country so maybe not representative.
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I’ll be growing them this year so we’ll see what I get. Joseph has said before that often enough other people growing his seed will have much larger fruits etc because his are selected for his garden with no fertilizer etc. So people often get huge squash from the large mix, and large squash from the medium mix, etc.
I planted Lofthouse melons several years ago but also melons from another landrace grower and some very large fruits showed up, in excess of 15 pounds. I can’t say for sure, but I think the very large ones came from Lofthouse seed, and they were also quite good, not as good as a typical Indiana melon but still very good. The very best melons in my opinion come from Indiana, especially from the sandy bottoms along the Wabash River.
I also had quite a few much smaller ones that first year. I like smaller ones and more per vine but unfortunately the smaller ones were not very tasty. Here is a selection from that first year.
And one that weighed 18 pounds.
I planted mostly just seed from my longtime favorite (Minnesota Midget) the next year and new ones started showing up, especially the year after that. The best melon flavor I’ve ever experienced comes in a very odd-looking package. They weigh three or four pounds and vary a lot.
As I recall these more mid-sized very yellow ones were pretty good too but nothing like the weird looking ones.
I don’t care for the green ones very much.
I expect to send seed from this mix up to the swap next year.
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Wow! That green and yellow deep-lobed warty thing is amazing!
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That thing might be ugly enough to scare the deer away lol
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That ugly one is mystery. I can’t remember for sure if it showed up in the second year or the third but none of the parent lines that it came from looked or tasted anything like it. Both Joseph and my other seed source denied any responsibility for it. O’well, lucky me, I don’t care where it came from. I haven’t seen another one that looks exactly like it since but that’s ok because I’ve selecting for ones that taste like it.
Here are some baseball sized ones. I was all excited about them, but it rained one day, the sun came out and they all blew up. I mean they blew up; some were scattered in pieces.
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I’m putting together my order for Uprising Seeds and I came across the “Prescott Fond Blanc” melon, which is deeply lobed like your green monster. Looking at pictures of that variety on a Google Image search, they sure have a lot of similarities to your weird one.
Fedco’s picture, dark splotchy greens:
Baker Creek’s picture, showing both a green and yellow/tan:
Uprising Seed’s picture, showing a yellow/tan:
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Back when I first found them, I used image search and came up with that same thing, so I think they about have to be where mine came from. I also think they were probably in the mix I got from a friend in Canada, but she said no. Descriptions say they came from France, there are a lot of French people in Canada, thus, guilt by association. 
There have been several variations in my garden since then. I select for very intense orange color, very firm flesh and that amazing flavor. Flavor is actually best if they are picked while still green. Some people here are put off by the very firm texture and I admit a melon with the texture of an apple is weird but if they go all the way ripe and soft; the flavor isn’t as good.
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Oh, that would make sense! Especially since it’s considered one of the best tasting melon varieties out there. I could see your Green Meanie having inherited its flavor.
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I’ve been specifically looking for weird looking melons because I think it would be fun if my melon patch was a random assortment of scary-delicious horrors.
May I also present the Zatta melon:
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That’s been on my list of melons to try! How does it taste?
I will let you know in ~3 months. Hopefully.
Sounds good! I hope it’s really yummy. 