How does watermelon grow

So wait until the watermelons have outgrown the most vulnerable stage where a slug can demolish them within minutes. Then mulch the area well. Watermelons have very shallow roots and they need lots of moisture. The soil should never dry out and mulch helps with that. Mulch also keeps weeds down. Weeding could disturb the shallow roots, so it's better to not let weeds grow to start with. Watermelons are VERY hungry plants. If your mulch is something like compost or aged animal manures, all the better.

Like all cucurbits, watermelons can handle fairly raw compost and manures. Otherwise, feed your watermelons regularly with something like pelleted chicken manure or another organic fertiliser.

Ideally you should use a high nitrogen fertiliser in the early stages, but cut back on nitrogen and give them lots of potassium once they flower and fruit. As your watermelon vines grow bigger they will start trying to take over more space.

If they start to smother other things you can remind them about sticking to their area by gently moving the tips of the vines, so they grow into the right direction. The smaller male flowers appear first. The female flowers are larger and you can already see the tiny melon beginning to form at the base of the flower. If you don't see female flowers it could have several reasons: too hot, too cold, not enough water, not enough nutrients In any way, it means the watermelon plant isn't happy.

If the plant does produce female flowers but the little fruit at the base of it shrivels up and dies, then the flowers are not getting pollinated. Watermelon flowers are insect pollinated.

If you suspect the insects aren't doing their job, you can do it yourself, just to be sure. Hand pollination is best done early in the morning.

Pull off several male flowers and remove the flower petals. Then brush the pollen laden stamen against the stigma in the centre of the female flower, so the pollen sticks to it.

To grow them as large as possible you can pinch out the tip of the branch after several fruits have set i. The first sign to look for is the curly tendril at the stem. Once it is dry, as in, totally dry not just starting to dry off, once it is totally dry, your watermelon may be ready.

Another sign is the light coloured patch on the bottom of the fruit. It is initially greenish, but as the melon ripens the green tinge disappears and it becomes yellowish. The skin overall becomes duller and tougher.

But the most popular way to tell if watermelons are ripe is the sound. If the melon is overripe, the color will be a pale pink not hot pink, and the rind will turn from a pale color to green. If the flesh is crisp and flavorful but pink then not to worry. If it is a bit mealy, that too is a sign it is overripe.

My Heavenly Days; this 83 year old lady has rarely seen such dedication to truth, contribution of shared experience, and sincere desire to give assistance to those in genuine search of help in your field. You are to be congratulated but also profusely thanked for this website and your depth of knowledge!! Hello Steve. The flowers seem to be turning a little brown as if pollination occurred which is impossible in a screened house we built. I also want to mention that the melons still looked healthy although the flowers look fist clenched tight with a touch of brown.

I decided to remove them. Do you know why this is happening? Or is there something I should be doing? Even flowers in other areas of my container garden are experiencing some brown turning flowers with no melons present yet. Please help. Too much nitrogen in the soil and too little phosphorus can cause flowers to not open. Temperature—too hot or too chilly—can also be a factor. Avoid high nitrogen fertilizer; use a fertilizer higher in phosphorus than nitrogen such as liquid kelp or kelp meal which is about 4 percent nitrogen and 13 percent phosphorus.

It normally happens when either I water my melons or feed them fish fertilizer. I am also encountering leaf curl and brown spots. Can you please help here? Mushrooms are fungi. They are feeding on undecomposed or slowly decomposing organic matter in your lawn or garden soil. You can break down organic matter by adding nitrogen to the soil; however, this may result in leafy growth and fewer melon fruits. When mushrooms appear, you can remove them one by one and dig down a few inches below the mushroom to see what organic matter they are feeding on.

Mushrooms thrive in moist soil. You can increase natural drainage by adding a commercial organic planting mix or aged compost to the soil when the planting beds are fallow. Good Morning! I notice that my plants look healthy and are sprawling everywhere. Many melons took well to my efforts and started off growing well.

But now, it looks as if they are stalling. Smaller than a golf ball. Please, what can I do to help them out? The first liquid feeding was last Saturday and I plan to give them more this Saturday as well, but the forecast calls for rain so I may have to either fertilize again either Friday or Sunday. Please, what can I do? Watermelon plants will be stressed if more than 3 fruits are growing on a plant; trim away the smallest fruits.

Continue to feed every 7 days with a liquid organic fertilizer high in phosphorus—this will support fruit growth. If you expect a hard rain, place a row cover over the plants before the rain starts to protect the plants and fruit. Hi Steve , I live in Pensacola Florida. My March batch of watermelons are getting chocked out from the weeds. I want to use weed barrier this time but my concern is it getting to warm and possibly burning the leaves or melons.

Any suggestions or advice to using the weed barrier with hot temperatures? Horticultural weed barriers include bio-degradable paper which is often brown and may not soak up as much solar heat as black weed fabric. You can also put down cardboard. You might be able to salvage your weed-choked melons by lifting the melons and placing cardboard beneath them.

Get the best gardening tips straight into your inbox! Email Address:. Join our gardening family to receive the latest tips. Search Search for: Search. Watermelons require 65 to 90 frost-free days to reach harvest.

Facebook 0 Tweet 0 Pin 0. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Vote Up 0 0 Vote Down 0. Please give some tips for growing watermelon. I live in the tropical country of Fiji. Does watermelon grow wel together with maize.

Thanks, Rhonda. Ni elim nzuri. Please give details about fertigation of water melon. Why are my melons splitting before there ripe? Hello Steve, My plants finally have watermelons but I am encountering a problem. Hello Steve, Is there anything I can do to help my melon leaves retain green? You are here Gardening » Growing Guides. Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Watermelons. By The Editors. When to Plant Watermelons In cool climates with short growing seasons, start seeds indoors 2 to 3 weeks before your last frost date.

Young watermelon plants can also be bought from nurseries. Plant these after there is no longer a chance of frost occurring; they are very tender. Watch the local forecast and err on the side of caution! Consider laying black plastic over your planting area in order to warm the soil even more. Tip: Starting with young plants can result in an earlier harvest usually up to 2 weeks earlier , so consider buying young plants particularly if you live in a cooler climate.

Watermelons are heavy feeders, meaning they need soil that is fertile and has a high nutrient level. Learn more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting. Watermelons do best in loamy, somewhat-sandy, well-drained soil. Watermelons prefer a soil pH between 6. Watermelons need A LOT of space—up to 20 square feet per plant.

Plan to space the plants feet apart in a 5-foot-wide hill. Tip: To allow for more root growth, use larger starting pots than you would for most seeds.

If direct seeding outdoors, sow 4 to 6 seeds per hill, eventually thinning to 2 to 3 seedlings. Transplanting Seedlings Handle watermelon seedlings with extreme care when you transplant. Their roots are very fragile, so try not to disturb the soil when removing them from pots. After transplanting, cover the plants with row covers to keep pests at bay.

Remember to remove the row covers when you see both male and female flowers on the vine, as pollinators will need to access the flowers. Find even more tips for planting melons in your home garden. How to Grow Watermelons Watering Watering is very important—from planting until fruit begins to form. While melon plants are growing, blooming, and setting fruit, they need 1 to 2 inches of water per week.

Keep soil moist, but not waterlogged. Reduce watering once fruit are growing. Dry weather produces the sweetest melon. Fertilizing If you choose to fertilize and many do , make sure it delivers more nitrogen than phosphorus and potassium, as this will encourage leaf and vine growth. However, after flowering begins, use a fertilizer with less nitrogen to instead encourage flowers and fruit.

We like to use a seaweed-based fertilizer. Flowering and Fruiting Vines produce male and female flowers separately on the same plant. They often begin producing male flowers several weeks before the females appear. Do not be concerned if the male flowers fall off. The female flowers which have a swollen bulb at the base will stay on the vine and bear fruit. Blossoms require pollination to set fruit, so be kind to the bees! Learn how to support pollinators in your garden. As fruit is ripening, prevent rotting by gently lifting it and putting cardboard or straw between the fruit and the soil.

General Care Tips Mulching with black plastic or straw around the plants will serve multiple purposes: it will warm the soil, hinder weed growth, and keep developing fruits off the soil. When the plant is young, just cut off the end buds as they form before the side shoots become vines. Its dark green rind displays bright yellow spots, reminiscent of a dark sky twinkling with a large moon and tiny stars. Plants grow inches tall with vines spreading inches and will be ready to harvest in around days.

Make sure to practice integrated pest management , a method that takes a longer-term approach to the health of your garden. Check out our article on the best deer fencing to learn more. Fencing is a good strategy to keep coyotes out of your garden, but you will require a slightly different style than what you would use for deer.

Instead, they climb them. Link recommends starting with five-foot-tall fencing. Then he suggests adding outward-tilting inch extenders to the top of the fence to prevent the canines from climbing over. And to prevent them from digging under , extend the fence underground about eight inches, using wire mesh.

For many gardeners, insects may be more problematic than the furry, four-legged type of garden pest. Keeping insects under control is important not only because these pests can chew up your plants, but because they can also spread disease. Melon aphids and spider mites can colonize leaf undersides and leaf tips, interfering with photosynthesis. If you notice either of these on your plants, remove them with a strong jet of water from your hose.

Another pest to be on the lookout for is the striped cucumber beetle. Prevent damage from these cucurbit pests by using floating row covers up until flowering — and with regular inspection of your plants.

Learn more about these and other insects that can bug your crops in our article on watermelon pests — coming soon! If you notice vine tips wilting, fusarium wilt may be the culprit.

There are resistant varieties to each of these fungal diseases, and starting off with these will give your plants an advantage over other cultivars. Also be on the lookout for blossom-end rot, a nutrient deficiency which also affects tomatoes. Learn more about these and other common problems in our guide to fighting watermelon disease — coming soon! This is one fruit, unlike apricots or avocados , that will not continue to ripen after harvest.

However, watermelons can go from unripe to spoiled in just a few days, so be vigilant about checking them as they approach maturity. That way, when your fruit is approaching full ripeness, you can start keeping an eye on it and will soon be ready to indulge in a sweet, juicy slice of watermelon. If the fruit has separated from the vine, or the vine is dead, go ahead and pick the fruit. If the fruit is still attached to the vine, and the vine is alive, there are several different tricks you can use to decide whether a watermelon is ripe or not.

You may want to try out each — or all — of these methods and decide what seems to work best for you:. In the case of some cultivars, a dull thud can even indicate that the fruit is overripe. Another questionable testing method is the fingernail test, in which you scratch the rind with a fingernail to determine whether the fruit is ripe.

The problem with this method is that any damage to the rind serves as a channel for bacteria to enter, which can speed up the rotting process. To harvest a ripe watermelon, use a sharp knife to cut the fruit off of the vine, leaving a two-inch-long piece of stem on the fruit. Once the fruit is removed from the vine, handle it gently to avoid bruising or damage to the rind.

After you have picked your melons, check to see if any have split or cracked during harvest — if so, these fruits should be used immediately. Intact fruits can handle some storage. According to Jim Shrefler and colleagues at the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension , watermelons can actually improve in flavor and color when kept at room temperature for up to a week.

This could be your basement or root cellar. What about the refrigerator? Once the fruit has been cut, it will keep in the refrigerator for up to five days in an airtight container. Some people prefer it fresh from the garden, while others this writer included enjoy it more after it has been chilled in the fridge.

However you prefer your melon, just make sure you thoroughly clean the rind before slicing it open, since bacteria such as E. There are several ways to preserve this wonderful summer fruit so that you can enjoy it even in the depths of winter.

Drying fruit results in a more concentrated package of sugars and flavor, and watermelon is no different. You can try making your own savory seeds for a healthy snack. Prepare them like you would pumpkin seeds — you can learn how to do it on Foodal.

You can learn about the best techniques for freezing fruit on our sister site, Foodal. Or instead of freezing it in chunks, you could work some culinary magic on it first. You can learn how to make sorbet out of any type of fruit on Foodal. Ready to be guided through the canning process? But if your thumbs are both bright green and you end up with a giant crop of homegrown watermelons, you might be open to some new ideas.

Personally, I love how the flavor of watermelon mixes with feta cheese and fresh mint leaves. Watermelon provides flavor and texture in fruit salads, but to shake things up a bit, how about using a cookie cutter to cut shapes out of watermelon slices instead of going with standard chunks or balls? And while star-shaped watermelon pieces might thrill the kids or your inner child , how about something for the adults?

This delicious recipe for watermelon daiquiris over at Foodal mixes light rum with sweet, frozen watermelon and fresh squeezed lime juice for a drink that is doubly refreshing. See our TOS for more details. Originally published on April 13, Last updated July 28, Revised and expanded from an original article by Linsey Knerl.

Uncredited photos: Shutterstock. Kristina Hicks-Hamblin lives on a dryland permaculture homestead in the high desert of Utah.