Minecraft wiki entry for Tips_and_tricks, associated text: Players will likely find pumpkins first, and these are far more useful: pumpkins provide jack o'lanterns, which are valuable for marking a path and the direction home, and can provide light underwater. Pumpkins can also be used for pumpkin pie, and later to create golems. A carved pumpkin can also be worn on the player's head to avoid offending endermen. Melons are a small-change food and eventually used for brewing. In any case, the two crops grow almost identically. They do use farmland so the same 9×9 plot with a water block works well, but instead of planting the whole field, you plant (almost) half the squares, which will grow into vines. You will leave the vines and harvest the fruit that grows next to it. See the tutorial above for advice on how to arrange the fields. Both pumpkins and melons make good crops for sale to villagers. Once you've been to the Nether, observers and other redstone gadgetry will let you automate pumpkin and melon farming.