Melon

Melons are blocks that grow from fully grown melon seeds. Once the plant reaches maturity, it will randomly create melon blocks on adjacent farmland (or dirt/grass). Destroying a melon yields 3-7 melon slices up to a maximum of 9 with a Fortune tool. A melon slice can be consumed for, or crafted into melon seeds to be planted as a new stem.

Crafting
Melon blocks can be crafted out of 9 melon slices. Note that this process cannot be reversed. The melon block must be placed and broken again to reclaim the melon slices. Some 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
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 Melons (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. You may collect melon blocks by using Silk touch enchanted Axe or Shears. Melons will not grow if there is not an air (empty) block above the stem. Melons will revert farmland below them to dirt when they grow. Unlike pumpkins, melon stems do not 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.
 * In Japan, farmers use a special technique to make watermelons into a square shape.