Melon

Melons were introduced in Minecraft 1.8 Pre-Release, the Adventure Update.

Behavior
Melons will have a central stem that slowly grows until it reaches its maximum size, at which point the melon will randomly spawn a fruit next to it if the block below is Farmland, and if there is air above the stem. Melon stems take around 10 to 30 minutes to fully develop. Melons will revert the farmland to dirt when it grows. Melon stems will only grow a single melon each, and melons that grow adjacent to a fully developed stem will cause that stem to connect to it.

For best results the farm should look like this:

S S S S S S S S S           F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F X X X X W X X X X     OR     X X X X W X X X X S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S F F F F F F F F F            S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S S            F F F F F F F F F F= Farmland; S= Melon Seeds; W= Water; X= Any Block

All Farmland and seed blocks will become hydrated using the above methods. These methods are equally efficient, however, the first one may be easier to harvest. Wheat could be grown in the spaces marked 'X' to avoid wasting potential hydrated farmland blocks.

If destroyed, melons will drop 3-7 (average of 5,2) melon slices; each will heal one food point. This will also happen when a Piston of any kind pushes a melon block.

A melon slice can be crafted into a melon seed to be planted as a new stem.

Crafting
Melon blocks can be crafted out of 9 melon slices.

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

On the Getsatisfaction.com complete ideas for the Ideas section, it has stated that Watermelons will be implemented.