Melon

Melons are blocks that grow from planted melon seeds, which grow over time until they reach maturity, randomly spawning melon blocks on adjacent farmland (or dirt/grass). Destroying a melon yields 3-7 melon slices, and a maximum of nine with a Fortune tool. A melon slice can be consumed for, or be crafted into a melon seed to be planted as a new stem.

Crafting
Melon blocks can be crafted out of 9 melon slices. You cannot reverse this to craft melon slices from a melon block. You must place the melon block and then destroy it to get melon slices back again. Melon slices are wasted in this process, as breaking a melon block only yields a portion of the melon slices used to craft the block. It still may be done for the sake of space efficiency, as a full stack of melons breaks into an average of 320 slices yet only takes one inventory slot. This enables food for a long journey to be carried compactly.

Farming
Main Article: Tutorials/Pumpkin and Melon Farming For other types of farming see Farming (disambiguation)

To start a Melon farm, one must first find Melon Seeds, which can be found in Abandoned Mine Shaft chests. You can also obtain Melon Slices (which can be crafted into melon seeds) from trading with villagers. Planting a Melon Seed places a small stem that will grow over time. Once the stem reaches maturity, the stem will spawn a Melon Block in one of the adjacent Dirt, Grass, or Farmland blocks every 1–30 minutes real-life time (0.05-1.5 Minecraft days) and all melon stems next to the new melon will visually connect to it. Once a stem has connected to a melon, that stem will not produce any further Melons until the existing Melon is harvested. Melons will revert farmland below them to dirt when they grow. Unlike pumpkins, melon stems do grow and produce in The End. For more details and farm layout suggestions, see the tutorial.

History
Melons were first revealed in an IGN interview with Notch.

Trivia

 * The Beta 1.8 Changelog had stated "Added Melons" twice.
 * Any stem adjacent to a melon block will appear to be connected to it, even if the melon was not grown from that stem.
 * On the Getsatisfaction.com complete ideas for the Ideas section, it was stated that Watermelons were to be implemented.
 * Despite the fact that the block and the items are called "Melon", "Melon Slice" and "Glistering Melon", they have the appearance of Watermelons and Watermelon Slices, like they were originally supposed to be named.
 * When a melon block is pushed by a piston, it will break into melon slices.
 * The block form is square, yet the slices are round.
 * Melon block resembles Japanese melons (In Japan, Melons are grown in boxes, thus making them square. The square shape allows the melons to be packed more efficiently in grocery stores and refrigerators).