Don't know how early you can work up your soil but a raised hill or ridge of dirt covered with black or clear plastic will heat up faster in the spring, especially when laid out north/south.

That's the trick used to sprout sweet potatoes early for slips to be set out by the time the rest of the ground gets warm enough for them. We gain about a month that way.

Taste on a cantaloupe is always a crap shoot. One variety will perform great one year and next year the same cantaloupe variety will taste like crap. I have left acres of them in the field because the taste was not there, but the year before they were great. A lot has to do with the amount of water they get at a certain point in maturity. To much water takes taste away from the melon.

Snowy I have grown them for 3 years in Wy at 6000 plus feet and start them in a hot house then replant. I get 90 percent that will ripen. They are small a bit bigger than a hard ball and enough for one person. I find them very sweet and more mild and not as musky smelling. One word of caution is as soon as the outer skin starts to yellow pick them or they will split open or rot. May be I have watered to much though. Good luck and they are the only ones I have had luck getting ripe consistently. Larger size melon's I will get one or two per plant that will ripen.

Nearly 60 years ago, I was dropped off at an experiment agri farm where they were growing Cantaloupe, trying to develope one with thick skin( for shipping) and one that would smell sweet ( because everyone picks them up and tries a sniff, then dumps back in pile)
So I was to tell if it smelt sweet or not, then take a plunger and get the juice out and do a Brix reading
Going home with 20 samples every night must have been my aunts way of feeding 10 young growing boys at home that night.
took me 20 years till I had another after that week of work...
but it did twig my interest in Science