Newtogardening....I also planted a bunch of basil from seed, and had great germination rates.....as they got bigger and several true leaves, then I took them out of their staring mix and gently separated them, it was not hard to do and they seemed pretty tough at this point...I thinned to 2 to 3 seedlings per new container...when planting to the garden, they will be planted as individuals not clumps....my (limited) experience was last year I direct sowed them, got ONE plant and that bugger was huge!!! couldnt wrap my arms around it. So multiples would seem to me to be unnecessary. I'd like to have someone else clarify too...the thinning out concept...if you have strong viable plants (just too many of them growing next to each other) Isn't it completely reasonable just to hand thin them and NOT pluck them out? but instead repot and let them grow on? This is what I have done anyways, and so far (I could end up being disappointed) they still seem strong and are continuing to grow. Any thoughts?

I'd just wrap the roots in wet paper towels and cover the paper in plastic. I don't know if they'd stay moist enough in a bag of soil. Karyn

Connie, How important? Well, that depends. If your soil is very rich and full of nutrients (watermelons are heavy feeders), you likely could get away with leaving a couple of extra plants in each hill, assuming your hills are properly spaced. If you have a lot of rain and your soil moisture level stays really high, the same thing applies. However, if you have poor soil that is lacking in nutrients and if moisture is scarce, then having too many plants per hill likely wouldn't give you the results you seek. Too many plants too close together in a low fertility/low moisture situation will be fighting one another for the limited nutrients and moisture and might not produce well because of that. The variety or varieties you'll planting also plays a role in making this decision. If you are growing varieties that produce very large melons, they won't be happy if there's too many plants competing for nutrients and water because those big plants that make big melons need all that stuff themselves. If you are growing varieties that produce small refrigerator sized melons, you could get away with leaving more per hill. I mostly grow varieties that produce the smaller, refrigerator sized melons and plant them ridiculously close together in a raised bed heavily amended with lots of compost. It also has a permanent irrigation line installed in it so they are easy to water. I plant them 1' apart in the middle of a 4' wide raised bed, and grow them upward on a trellis that is 5' tall. Once the plants reach the top of the trellis they just cascade back down to the ground. The part of the bed that has watermelons trellised in it is probably 15-20' long, and then on either end there's another 6 or 8' long area with trellised muskmelons (Hale's Big Jumbo, Scrumptious, and Carole). These plants all replaced Sugar Snap Peas when they were through producing so they likely have been in the ground 5 or 6 weeks. The watermelon plants are ahead of the muskmelons and already have set about 25 melons, which range in size from hen egg sized to softball sized. The muskmelons just started blooming this week. When you trellis melons it can be really easy for the melons to get too much sunlight directly on them, which can cause them to sunburn and then the burned area rots before the melon can ripen. That's why I plant so closely---so we'll have tons of foliage on that trellis to shade all the developing melons. We love watermelon too and the refrigerator ones are perfect for a small family, and they just keep pumping out new melons all season long, so we have melons until the first freeze of fall arrives. Sometimes we have so many melons at one time that I slice them up and feed them to the chickens, the deer and the rabbits. I like sharing with the animals, both domestic and wild, when we have extra--especially in the heart of the summer when their native food supply is all dried up from heat and drought. In a different raised bed of the same size, I have other melon plants. Some of them I planted myself and others sprouted from seeds from some previous year (I didn't grow melons in this bed in the past so something put those seeds there, but it wasn't me). One of the plants there produces fruit too big to trellis. It is called Harvest Moon and was an AAS winner a couple of years back. It already has produced two ripe melons and has several more in various sizes. The other plants in there are refrigerator melons and I planted one plant about every three feet. They are doing great and have lots of melons on them too, but the melons are a lot harder to find than the trellised ones. There's also a little watermelon patch in the back garden. I didn't plant it either, but did grow melons back there last year. We haven't harvested one from that area yet and the plants back there are smaller and don't look as happy as the ones in the front garden because the soil back there is not as good. Still, that garden produced lots of melons last year so it is adequate. These must have sprouted from a melon that a vole gobbled up last summer. I never picked up the remains, just left it lying there, and about a half-dozen seeds sprouted. I didn't thin those either, just left them where they came up. I hate to thin anything, although with some things, it is important to thin---like with root crops like radishes and carrots. With melons, though? The worst thing that will happen is that you might not get as many fruit as you want, but that can happen even if thinned properly. I always like to try and push the limits to see how many plants I can cram into any given spot. It generally works out just fine. You won't know how it will work for you in your soil and your growing conditions until you give it a try. Dawn

It is strictly your choice. It is not required for any reason unless perhaps someone is trying to grow a giant for a competition and even then the potential for gain in size is primarily variety-related. IME with the variety you usually only see such clusters with the first sets only so why not do it on a couple of clusters and leave the others and see which you prefer to do. Just keep in mind that it is determinate variety so you will be sacrificing some production. Dave