The two major festivals in our country Diwali and Holi have enormous significance in our lives, from all aspects. But they do have some environmental significance as well. They mark the imminent arrival of winters and summers respectively. The Holi season marks in the beginning of the summer season and this transition from one weather to another involves making certain changes in ones diet as well as other lifestyle habits. While winters are all about spicy, fat-laden ‘festive food’ summers require a more easy to digest kind of diet comprising of simple dishes and cooling fruits rich in water content to suit/ acclimatize our bodies to the increasing temperature outside.
One of the best summer snack fruits is Muskmelon or kharbuja. With its high water content, these are considered ideal for the summer heat in India. Muskmelon has enormous benefits, you can reap both nutritional as well as beauty benefits from muskmelon.
Nutritional benefits of Muskmelon
- Helps flush out toxins from the body
- Regulates blood pressure
- Boosts immunity
- Great for skin-packed with collagen
- Benefits lungs
- Helps weight loss
- Helps relieve insomnia
How to use Muskmelon in foods?
Not just muskmelon, but its seeds too are useful! They find their use in a wide range of foods. They can be used for garnishing purposes, for flavouring purposes, alone as a snack and many more.
Muskmelons can be consumed in a variety of ways. You can either simply slice, peel and eat them or you an grind them to make a delicious smoothie out of them. Here are some ways in which you can use Muskmelon in your food
- Muskmelon smoothie - Just blend some curd, muskmelon, bananas and some water and you're good to go!
- As a salad dressing
- Slush - You’ll just require muskmelons and blacksalt for this. Just blend them and serve chilled. You can also garnish it using mint leaves and muskmelon seeds.
Varieties of Kharbuja plant
Just like any other plant, Muskmelon plant too has several varieties such as the Kajri muskmelon, F1 hybrid US 111 variety and certain small melons such as sprite.
- The Kajri seeds of muskmelon grow in Northern India. Muskmelon growing time is 2 months from sowing of the seeds. Contrary to the conventional muskmelon plant, this variety is tolerant to BRIX13 and has an orange coloured flesh.
- The next muskmelon seeds variety is the F1 Hybrid US 111 seeds. This variety too is tolerant to BRIX13 and muskmelon cultivation of the aforementioned variety would provide fruit in 60-70 days.
So, how about planting melons in your home garden? You will not have to step out in the heat to combat it. Simply take some muskmelons from your home garden and relish its soothing taste.
Here’s your guide to Melon planting at your home
The muskmelon planting season in India is between November and February i.e its seeds are sown between November and February. However, the optimum time for sowing muskmelon plant seeds is -Mid February. Dry weather with clear sunshine during ripening ensures a high sugar content, better flavour and a high percentage of marketable fruits. High humidity increases the incidence of diseases, particularly those affecting foliage. Cool nights and warm days are ideal for accumulation of sugars in the fruits.
If you are planning to grow muskmelon at home, the usual preference of growing is that of growing muskmelon plant in pot because of its versatility and ease of doing the job. You’ll have to select a container of optimum size for this purpose and the next most important step in melon growing at home is soil selection. Muskmelon plant requires a compost rich soil and requires a minimum spacing of 90cms. Make sure you use best soil mix for seeds and right gardening tools to sow the little seeds so they give high yield at the end, After planting melon seeds, you can expect to see the muskmelon seedling within 3-5 days(if provided with optimal care).Upon maturing, they naturally stem/fall of just like most of the fruits. In order to prevent weeds, one should use a paper or a roll out mulch. Now here’s a pro tip for melon planting: If you wish to get sweeter muskmelon flower or fruit, which one obviously does, you need to mix 4-5 tablespoons of Epsom salt, and 1-2 tablespoons of household borax in about 5 liters of water, and spray the solution on ripe vines and have successful germination of seeds at the end.
About Urja seeds
At Urja Seeds, we provide a wide range of muskmelon seeds online along with other agricultural seeds online. We have many varieties of vegetable seeds, flower seeds, micro green seeds and exotic seeds and that too at quite affordable prices. Our products are well packaged and hygienic. We provide one of the best doorstep delivery services to ensure that our products are worth the money spent by our customers.
FAQs
Q1: How long does it take for muskmelon seeds to germinate?
Ans: Muskmelon seeds germinate within 3-5 days from sowing the seeds.
Q2: Is it necessary to pre-soak muskmelon seeds before sowing them?
Ans: Though not necessary, pre soaking of seeds just enhances the germination process and gives the seeds a sort of kickstart from the very beginning.
Q3: How do I use muskmelon seeds?
Ans: Muskmelon seeds can be used in a lot of ways such as:
- Raw consumption
- Flavouring of sweet dishes
- As a snack by adding spices to it
- Salad dressings