Some of your questions are a bit controversial, yipla. By that I mean not everyone agrees ;-) Wayne, on the veggie gardening forum is a melon growing guru. I don't think he does any in containers, but he has a wealth of knowledge on all things melon. My guesstimate on number of fruit per plant is 'as many as grow to size in a reasonable time.' Kind of generic answer, huh? Generally pruning off fruit is done with the varieties one wants to grow to the largest size possible or to get fruit ripe in advance of a frost , but this isn't the case with sugar baby. Also, it should be a fairly vigorous vine so should be able to mature all fruit it produces, but I would pop over to the veggie forum and seek out Wayne for more experienced guidance on this. Should you cut off side branches on vine crops after you have selected the fruit you wish to keep? Again, a controversial question, but my answer is 'no'. The leaves are feeding energy to the plant so leave them alone. The contrasting answer is that the more leaves, the faster the plant loses water so kind of balance those priorities as you see fit.

First off, let me start off by expressing a bit of outrage and jealousy about anyone who is fussing about watermelon fertilization on May 22.... I planted my "just-sprouted" watermeon seeds in the garden a day or two ago. That said, I looked up my garden records from last year for "Yellow Doll" watermelon, which yields watermelons about the same size as Sugar Baby... I noted on August 12 that the melons were ping-pong ball size so that's when I assumed pollination was successsful, then the first ripe melon was picked Sept. 16, or 5 weeks later.

Damn. I was thinking about going for a world record but Ill guess that will have to weight until next year:-) Fingers crossed. The bag of seeds was given to me by a friend and it showed 30 seeds on the packet but when I counted them it was closer to 45-50. I planted all of them because I didnt know if they would keep in the fridge until next year or not. I should have kept some, oh well.

I have been told many times that Mississippi is the poorest state in the entire country, but it amazes me what we get for our money in this state when I read about the silly things that northern gardeners do with a trellis. I may not have a lot of money, but I live in a warm state with enough sunshine and land to grow a watermelon on, and if I start early enough, I can grow any kind of watermelon that I want on my land because land is cheap in Mississippi. However, this is my first year to attempt to grow Sugar Babies. I selected that variety because I am planning to sell them at a roadside market and thought that people who have smaller families than they used to would want smaller watermelons. The little ones seem to do well at the grocery store. My first ripe looking watermelon has come in, and I want to know if it is indeed ripe. It has changed its color to dark green. I am told that Sugar Babies do that. It also has a bright yellow spot on the bottom. So far so good. It is soft ball sized, but I am not considering the size as important because I know watermelons better than that. However, the tendril has not changed. Should I consider this to be important? If you ever get tired of being cold, feel free to check us out. We are somewhat due south of Chicago, Ill, but it seems like it's on a different planet.