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Vegetable Gardening

does anyone grow watermelons or any other melons?

14 years ago

last year, i just spit all the watermelon seeds on top of the soil in the backyard, they all grew. but they kept growing without any producing any watermelons.

i wonder if i need to use a lot of fertilizers, etc in order to produce some watermelons?

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Comments (6)

shiggle20
14 years ago
Did they ever flower?
farmerdilla
14 years ago
Watermelons need only two things, sandy soil and heat. One of the easiest plants to grow if you meet those conditions. Chances are when you spit those seeds in the back yard it was too late in the season. I have seen some excellent volunteer watermelons along fence rows and perennial beds.{{gwi:39567}}
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Hi, vgkg. I wouldn't think that disease would be limited to the north. I believe that fusarium wilt was first identified in South Carolina or somewhere like that in the 1880s. Anyway, What I have observed is that watermelons and cantaloupes do splendidly well the first two years in a new location if well cared for. Then the next year they just don't thrive as well and cannot seem to finish up the fruits with full flavor and vigor. The next year some of the plants die suddenly of classic fusarium wilt about the time the fruits set on. Then what I have had happen is the next year the watermelons do splendidly until the fruits are 2/3 grown and whammy, the whole patch wilts in unison on a hot day. They recover at night , but every hot day they grow worse until most of them die. A few regrow from the center, but are too late to finish good sized fruits. Purdue calls this Mature Vine Decline [Sudden Wilt]. I didn't have that problem in the old melon patches last year, but a new problem that looked nothing like any pictures of melon diseases. The melons again grew splendidly until the fruits were well along. Then one plant on the end got yellow leaves in the center. Further out on the vines the leaves were mottled yellow and green. This developed until the leaves fell off. Then a neighbor plant got it and then the next one got it until one by one the whole row had it. This happened in all three locations. I belatedly used a fungicide Anyway, most of the plants recovered and started a whole new growth from the center and set on more fruits and were extra healthy. In my new location the melons were exceptional in size and number...see not diseased. Some commercial growers fumigate to get them through the season. I cannot do that. Even the big growers have all the fungals they want and more and they watch and spray like a hawk.
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These plants actually took a bit of a beating early on (7 inches of rain the week after they were transplanted), one plant appeared to be all but dead, but then they did bounce back nicely once the heat hit in July. That first ripe melon was picked 70 days after transplanting. Sureness is supposed to be a 65-day so that appears accurate, even here. We did have a very nice July and August - good rains, lots of heat (LOTS of mosquitos) and plenty of bees. I fertilized them twice with 15-30-15 to bring on the blooms.
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okay, sorry for my obvious lck of knowledge here but I have a few more questions. My beds are 4' wide by 16' long. The plants are now about 10 (or more) wide by 18' long. They are growing among the grass in the field now because they outgrew the beds so quickly. I planted 2 "hills" of "million bucks" watermelon and 1 hill of "orange sunshine". In another bed I planted 4 hills- 1 each of "honey bun", "ambrosia" muskmelons and 1 charentais and 1 honey dew. I thought the honey bun muskmelon would be great since they are "personal size" but every one of them has rotted on the vine. Next to them is the honeydew which is having the problems I mentioned earlier. The charentais and the ambrosia are doing fine. The million bucks watermelon is also doing fine but the orange sunshine watermelon is NOT orange and it is NOT seedless. Could this be because it has cross pollinated with the million bucks instead of the pollinator seed that was included in the pack? This begs another question. The pack mentioned that there were 2 types of seeds in the orange sunshine pack but I could not tell the difference between them at all. How will I know for next time and, will the pollinator melons have seeds? (maybe this is the one I picked??) How can you tell them apart or will the varieties be different enough that you will know? I took a bunch to my husbands work (that is where we are selling everything) and a lot of people were asking if I had seedless so I really think that I will have to focus on that next year. I probably could have sold 2 seedless for every 1 that I sold on Friday. I have to go now but I have more questions to ask later...
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Comments (11)
My family always grew 20-40 acres of watermelon each year when I was a teenager, which has been a few decades now. We would always plant custom greenhouse grown plants that were about 4 to 6 inches tall, so I can't help on the from seed part. (I don't remember exactly how many, but it was measured in 32 ft trailer loads, usually 2 or 3 per year, from the greenhouse nearly 200 miles away) I can tell you that we grew them with no irrigation with the plants planted in rows of black plastic mulch (trash bag material), the best melon production was in years with moderate spring rains, excess rain caused inferior melon production or failed crops. This was in SW Louisiana, areas with sandy soil generally had the best production, most of our land was fine sandy loam soil, however the best melons were always from the more sandy regions. As to fertilizer I remember we always added a lot of extra potassium when preparing the soil in the watermelon patch each year.
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tammysf
14 years ago
When I was a kid I spit some seeds and a plant grew. We didn't do anything with it and I got 1 small watermelon the sice of cantelope. I was so excited and sort of got the gardening bug.

This is my first year with my own garden and I am growing melons: charentais, arava, honey orange.

Next year I will add some watermelons as well for my husband.
wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
14 years ago
I had one excellent volunteer watermelon once in a virgin soil fencerow, but other volunteers fail miserably usually for me. They need LOOSE soil and good nutrients. Maybe farmer can toss the seeds there, but it sure doesn't work most places.
cyrus_gardner
14 years ago
melons (all kinds) need warm long season. If the season is short and cold fruits may not get big and ripen.

The starter said that he did not get any melons.
One reply was "did they ever flower?".
Good question. If they don't flower there would be zero chane but if they did, there could be some chance butnot automatic.
Melons family plants has two different flowers, male and female. The female has to get male's pollin in order to grow fruit. The insects, mostly bees do the job of polinating. There are other flying and non-flying insects which also become a pollinators. The chaces are you might not get any of those. In such cases you will not get any fruit, UNLESS YOU DO IT YOURSELF.

Ther are other reasons fo melons not to fruit: (1) too much nitrogen, (2) Too much shade not enough sun.

You can do a few things to improve the chances: Feed them fertilizers rich in phosphorus, poor in nitrogen, after they begin growing vine. Pinch the main, when it is about 4 ft long, to encourage latteral vines growth. Most female flower will appear on the latteral branches. Also, plant them in a location that they will get a minimum of 5 hours direct sun.
wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
14 years ago
I usually get lots of lateral vines after a short while, but prefer to set fruits on the main line.

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