scotishred:

Well, it's green, and has a pair of little oval leaves. How else to describe a seedling? Watermelon seedlings look a lot like other cucurbits, such as squash and cucumbers. Watermelon leaves are more distinctive when the true leaves begin to grow in, because they are more deeply lobed.

What's the issue here? Are you trying to distinguish between watermelon seedlings and weeds?

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Acutally I am trying to distinguish between watermelon and corn. Now don't laugh at me but I planted several different fruits and vegetables to go in my first garden. The pumpkins, cucumbers and squash have come up and look resonably like what I expected them too. However the peat pots marked watermelon have sprouted and look amazingly like corn. I am very afraid I have mismarked my pots. The seedlings are light green nad about 1 inch high. They look like the are going to have very long slender leaves once they fold out. Right now they stick straight up and down almost like a light green tooth pick. What do you think?

Definitely sounds like you mislabeled. As Don said, the pumpkin should look like the squash and cukes. Monocot (corn) and dicot (watermelon) seedlings look nothing alike. The corn should look pretty much like grass at this point.

scotishred:

If you post again, you would be helping yourself, as well as making it much easier to provide you with meaningful advice, if you would specify your location. Depending on where you are located, which more or less determines your spring weather patterns, starting seeds such as sweet corn, or even melons and squash indoors in peat pots may be an unnecessary step that you could eliminate.

I am on the southern edge of zone 6b, and always start long-season plants like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant indoors. This helps to ensure that these late-setting plants have plenty of time to mature a good crop before frost. But I never start corn, squash or melons indoors, since it is just not neccessary when the seeds can be planted in adequately warm soil by the 2nd or 3rd week of May. Direct-seeded plants of these crops pop up quickly, and just as quickly catch up with those seeded indoors. So unless you are located in a northern latitude where there is a real question about whether sweet corn will mature before frost (that would be zone 3 and above), direct seeding might be best for you. Before I direct seed corn I dig a trench about 4 inches deep parallel to the seedrow and place a good amount of nitrogen fertilizer in it. This helps to feed the corn, which is a big nitrogen eater, and ensures that the ears fill out nicely.

Beginning growers often assume that the earlier they plant indoor-started plants like melons the better, and end up with big, leggy plants that are difficult to transplant and will never be as healthy and vigorous as direct-seeded plants of identical type. There is no point in setting out heat-loving plants until night-time temperatures are high enough to make them grow quickly, unless you are going to the additional step of using cloches.

Also, as a beginning gardener, I would suggest that the Carolina Cross melon you are growing is not a good choice for you. This is a giant melon, used by growers who compete to grow giant vegetables. You don't want to be trying something like this when you are just starting out, especially since this melon requires such a long season to ripen. Instead, I would suggest something like the 10 lb. Sugar Baby, which can ripen in 75 days and produce a better tasting melon than any of the giants. It's also something you can actually use.

Having said all that, sweet corn seedlings should look like grass when they emerge. They are grass. Big grass. With ears.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Yeah you guessed it I am a novice gardener. Normally I would agree with you on direct planting of the corn watermelon and other heat loving plants but I live in the Texas panhandle and our weather up here this year has been odd to say the least. We had snow a week ago, which is late for us, so there is no telling how long our growing season will be this year and I wanted to make sure I had enought time. And the watermelon may not be an issue, I am beginning to think the carolina cross are the plants the dog ate. I have mismarded my pots and I have a dog who likes to eat seedlings, its going to be an intreting garden I think.