I once installed a few of my fruit trees for a woman widely known for growing unusual melons, many of them heirlooms. She's written at least one book on the subject and while I didn't find her widely knowledgeable about horticulture in general she certainly is succesful growing a lot of wild looking melons. The most important part of her method was growing them over black plastic which I think is almost essential from about zone 6 going down.
OK Fluffy, that's not much, but it's all I got.
Harvested a half gallon of strawberries yesterday- yay. Fruit is in season again.