A melon with a unique quality: harvested in summer, it keeps until Christmas — and beyond.
About the variety. Tendral Negro has dark green skin, white flesh and elliptical fruits weighing 2 to 3 kg. Known in Portugal and Spain as the "Christmas melon", it is prized precisely for its exceptional keeping ability. Highly melliferous, its flowers attract pollinators. Indeterminate habit, plants 20 to 40 cm tall.
Indicative windows; adjust them to your local climate.
Edible flower
Bee-friendly
Direct sowing
Growing guide
How to grow melon tendral negro?
A step-by-step growing guide, from sowing to harvest.
Sowing
Sow in individual pots three to four weeks before planting out, two centimetres deep, with the compost between 24 °C and 28 °C. Germination takes four to eight days. Transplant with the root ball intact and never bury the collar, which rots easily. Plant into warmed soil, above 18 °C: planting early into cold soil checks the plant for the rest of the season. The first flowers are all male and set no fruit; if later the small fruits shrivel, pollination is failing: hand pollinate early in the morning with a brush. This variety makes long vines: the spacing given is for plants trained on a support or with the vines kept in check; left to run on the ground, it takes two to three metres.
Soil
It wants loose, deep, very free draining soil rich in organic matter, with a pH between 6.0 and 7.0. It prefers ground that warms fast, such as sandy or loamy soil, and hates heavy cold soil. A raised bed with a dark mulch or film speeds the start considerably in cooler regions.
Climate
It needs a great deal of heat and sun, between 22 °C and 32 °C, and a long dry finish for the fruit to build sugar. It is the most heat dependent crop in the European vegetable garden. On the Atlantic coast and in northern Europe it rarely reaches the sweetness it achieves inland, and there a greenhouse or tunnel is close to essential. Inland in Portugal and Spain heat rather than cold is the limiting factor: in weeks above 35 °C the plant stalls and light shade over midday pays for itself. In France outdoor growing is reliable from the centre southwards, while in northern France and in Germany a greenhouse, a polytunnel or a warm south facing wall makes the difference, and planting out should wait until after the mid May cold snap. This is a long cycle variety. Outside inland Iberia it only finishes if sown early with warmth and grown in a greenhouse or tunnel.
Fertilisation
Work two to three kilos of well rotted compost into each square metre before planting and add a handful of wood ash to top up potassium. Once growth is away, feed with a liquid organic fertiliser every two or three weeks, moving from a balanced formula to a higher potassium one as cropping begins. Avoid excess nitrogen, which gives lush leaves, a poor crop and a lot of aphids.
Watering
Water regularly until the fruit reaches full size and then cut back sharply. Carrying on watering during ripening is the mistake that ruins most melons: it gives bland, split fruit. The last two weeks should be almost dry. Always water at the base, never over the leaves or the fruit.
Weed control
The critical period is the first month, before the foliage covers the ground. Hand weed in that phase and, once the vines start to run, stop disturbing the soil: from then on the plant smothers weeds itself. A straw mulch under the foliage keeps the fruit clean and dry and greatly reduces losses to rot where fruit touches the soil.
Pest control
The main pests are aphids, red spider mite, thrips and whitefly, and on young plants slugs and snails, which can cut down a newly emerged seedling in one night. Protect the seedlings with a cut bottle or an ash barrier for the first weeks. Against aphids and whitefly use potassium soap in the late afternoon; against red spider mite, which appears in dry heat, wet the leaves in the morning and use neem oil.
Diseases
Powdery mildew is practically unavoidable and shows as white dust on the upper leaf surface, above all from midsummer on. It is checked with potassium bicarbonate or sulphur applied at the first signs, together with removal of old leaves and good airflow. Cucurbit downy mildew gives angular yellow patches bounded by the veins and thrives in coastal humidity. Anthracnose and collar rot appear in waterlogged soil. Use a four year rotation and clear all crop debris at the end of the season, because that is where the fungi overwinter.
Harvest
This is a winter melon, almost without aroma and never slipping from the stalk: ripeness shows in the ground spot, which turns from white to yellow, and in the skin giving slightly at the end opposite the stalk. Slide a tile, board or straw under each fruit to keep it dry and clean. Tendral is a keeping melon: harvest late, before the frosts, and it stores two to three months somewhere cool and dry. Allow about 90 days from transplanting to the first harvest of this variety. The reference colour is dark green skin with white flesh, and that is what tells you it is ready.
