Flowering melon plant but no melons?

Question

I grew seedlings from a great cantaloupe we had last summer. Only one of the plants made it when I transplanted them to large pots on my patio garden. The plant is flourishing, lots of flowers but not seeing any fruit. I do not have bees (I live on the 40th floor in an urban area. But other bugs seem to fertilize most of my other plants and vegetables. Should I use a Q-tip? Am i waiting long enough to see fruit, or as I am afraid do store purchased melons not have the ability to reproduce? Or can one plant fertilize itself? Last year I was OK with one cucumber plant.

Thanks

Answer 1

I have grown cataloupe before and it takes a very long time for them to mature. It may take a little longer until you actually see a small little fruit on there. But here is a websit with the maturity date and what not...http://www.aces.edu/counties/Tallapoosa/...

Answer 2

If you have flowers on the plant you will have fruit in a couple of weeks. Just be patient

Answer 3

Melons, squash, cucumbers. and anything in the gourd family will flower out male flowers first for about 2 to 3 weeks before the female flowers appear ..They will fall off and more males appear this goes on awhile them finally the female flowers come into existance...You can hand pollinate simply by going out and shaking each vine daily for about 5 seconds..Nothing harsh just gently..Thye do this in controlled enviroments such as greenhouses where no bees are present...The male flower is quite distinguised for when it blooms it has a long skinny stem that it grows on..when th femle flower will grow right from the base of the main vine it is on..Here is a picture of A male flower..

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...

This is a female ..notice how it is growing directly from the main vine?

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...