I’m growing pie pumpking…long island cheese? something like that. Its really put on a ton of growth…lots of flowers. Haven’t looked if i have fruit set.
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Moon and stars?
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Yes it is
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Maybe I was wrong about my largest Blacktail Mountain stalling out. On July 3, it weighed 2 lb 14 oz. Today, only 12 days later, it weighs 6 lb even.
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It sure is fun watching everyone talk about and show photos of their melons- especially new growers. In my experience, it isn’t uncommon for melons to stop growing and then start back with no explanation for why they do either. Usually, though, mine will show very obvious increases in growth about a week after application of fertilize (plain 15-15-15 works wonders for me). One of the things that makes a huge difference to me and that I love to do is to try and apply a good dose of fertilize right before a good rain. About 3-4 days later you’ll see bright green tips on all the vines and the melons will grow too. I’ve heard a lot debate about whether excessive water and/or fertilize affects sweetness or not. I won’t get into that debate but I will say that for me giving a fair amount of both (fertilize more than water, and I don’t water mine unless it’s desperately dry) makes such a huge difference in production of vines and melons that I can’t resist doing it and usually have really good, sweet watermelons. I highly respect fruitnut and he’s a big believer in shorting water to increase sweetness in all fruits. Since I only water in extreme droughts, and my plants are all outside, I just can’t really control water amounts and just get what comes. But in general, my watermelons do better in hot, fairly dry summers that just have occasional rains.
Don’t worry about stalling growth. It is true that sometimes a cessation of growth is the first step in a watermelon spontaneously aborting (this can happen almost any time, but gets less common the larger a melon gets). But there is not a thing you can do about it so I wouldn’t worry. Its just as common that they will take off again or that they have really just slowed down but not truly stalled. The bigger a watermelon gets the slower it grows, so it can be a bit deceiving.
BTW: I wouldn’t thin watermelons on a vine! Yes, if you are very seriously about growing only giant watermelons, then you can pluck all but 1 or two melons off a vine to get larger ones. But listen to me on this because I’ve tried it several times…the difference in size you will get by thinning off some or most watermelons is just not nearly as much as you think. Plants will do this naturally so that it will usually end up with about the optimal amount of melons it can support. If too many get pollinated some will be aborted. But if you pluck off good, viable melons yourself you will most certainly be reducing the net poundage of melons at harvest. In other words, even an over burdened melon plant will produce a total poundage of fruit that will be considerably higher than only 1-3 larger melons would add up to. In fact, my experience is that the size of melons on a vine with 4 melons isn’t nearly as much higher as you would think compared to if you thin it down to 1-2. Even champion, record chasing growers will tell you there is much, much, much more to getting giant melons than just the number of the vine.
These are just my own experiences…others may have other ones. Either way, nice to see so many people having fun growing watermelons. I’m about to pick my first cantaloupe of the year which is actually about 1-2 weeks early for me.
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I enjoy reading your posts about your experiences growing watermelons. Thanks for helping educate us.
I’ve got my 6-lb Blacktail Mountain that has just begun showing the tendril browning, and it has a nice yellow-orange spot on the bottom. I have no idea when it’ll be ready to pick. I guess too early and too late are equally bad. I’ll weigh it again in a day or two to see if it’s adding size.
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Kevin, I agree with all you posted, especially about thinning and watering. I
think the key to growing larger melons is spacing and the number of plants
per hill. It’s much better to grow just one plant and give it at least 5 ft, of
spacing, then trying to grow several plants per hill, with limited spacing. I’ve
experimented doing this many times over the years and have always found this to be true. I can get more and larger melons with just one plant, than with 2-3 plants in the same spacing. Thinning and pruning give really little, if any, benefit at all.
I also only water during drought periods and never in the afternoon,.especially if there are melons on the vine. In the afternoon heat, the pressure inside the melon expands like a balloon, and adding water will cause the melon to split. So, only water in the early morning, while the melon is still cool. I only fertilize 3 times, 10-10-10 when I till the patch, then MG, when the plants start to run and then calcium nitrate after fruit set. Any more fertilizer, especially nitrogen, will increase the possibility of the melon developing white heart.
I have a friend that lost an entire crop, because of over fertilization. He had a truck load of Sangrias that he couldn’t give away. ,
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Well, I didn’t want to push my luck on something happening to my only watermelon, so I picked it last night. Everybody really liked it. In fact, the kids spent $20 on a fancy watermelon for the basketball team, and they said they like mine better. Could be a conflict of interest but I’m not gonna ask.
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What a beautiful looking melon, @TheNiceGuy ! Looks like you did well. I was nervous when I read that you had picked it out of fear something would happen to it because I was afraid you were going to show a photo of an unripe inside melon! But not at all! That looks perfect!
@UnderDawgAl I find the hardest thing to tell someone else is how to know when a melon is right. I’ve picked melons with completely brown and dried tendrils that aren’t ripe and green tendrils that were. I’ve had melons with yellow bellies that weren’t ripe and white and green bellies that were. I’ve had melons that sounded hollow that weren’t right and those that sounded “dead” that were. I’ve gotten pretty good (NOT PERFECT!!!) at using all the so-called ways to tell along with things that are harder to describe (the loss of a “sheen” that happens when a melon gets ripe but its very hard to notice) as well as how big the melon is and how long its been that size and a few other things, but in general there are no hard-fast rules that are ALWAYS true. Tendrils, color of bottom (depending on variety), sheen, and to a lesser extend sound-when knocked can all be indicators and are probably true more often than not, but just don’t assume something like a brown tendril is a 100% guarantee of a ripe melon. Of course, none of this does you any good since I’m mostly just saying what might not work and not offering much help on what will work. Just time and experience will help keep you from picking to many unripe melons. Meanwhile you don’t have much choice than go by the old techniques I’ve just mentioned. Good luck.
@rayrose as always, we seem to be eye to eye on watermelon growing! I like your advice about not watering in the afternoon and I hadn’t really known that before but it makes sense. I almost never water so I haven’t learned much about how to do it- so I needed that information. As for fertilizing, I probably fertilize just 1-2 more times than you do which is still pretty close, and I’ve been lucky not to have any white hearts from it. Anyway, I hope you are having a better year than me…thanks in part to poor germination and part to my lack of attention to weeds this year, I’ve got less plants and poorer looking ones than I have in many years. Oh well…as long as I get enough to eat (and I will) my friends and family will just have to suffer the consequences. haha
Kevin, It looks like I got your luck and mine this year. I added a third
patch this year, in order to make up for all of the stone fruit I lost with
our late freeze. I have STRONG vines coming out of my ying yang. The
best canopies I’ve ever seen, with almost no weeds. It’s going to be a
bumper crop with a LONG harvest. I did 3 things differently this year, and
it has really paid off. 1) I didn’t till the entire patch, but only the area where
the seeds are planted. This has kept down the weeds. 2) I used all new seeds, which gave me good although sporadic germination. I have plants at various stages, which will give a prolonged harvest. 3) I did a third application of fertilizer, calcium nitrate, and the melons love it. I also did a fourth application of calcium chloride, which I’m just now remembering as I’m typing this. I’ve been growing melons for many years, and I can never recall having vines like these. I thought of taking pictures, but no picture
would do it justice. You would think I was growing kudzu.
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Glad to hear yours did so well! I just can’t tell you how much I love the idea of not tilling the whole area…That is brilliant- really. I do till my who area and I end up having to re-till a large portion of my patch before the vines even get long enough to reach there. So I am tilling and retilling dirt that isn’t growing or even supporting any vines. Also, there have been years when I’ve sewn seeds right at the edge of my tilled garden with the idea that I would send the vines back toward the garden instead of into the grass that grows beside the garden. Then I would spray roundup on the grass beside the garden (where it isn’t tilled) just to keep things neat looking. Well, a couple times I’d end up just letting those melons at the edge run out onto the untilled grassy area (which was dead from round-up). The result is that the vines would spread out and grow thick enough on the untilled area that it would shade out weeds before the round-up wore off enough for new grass/weeds to grow back. The dead areas stayed dead soooo much longer when it was on untilled soil. Even when it grew back it isn’t nearly as hard to fight as is tilled soil. So that is a long winded way of saying I’ve had a very small bit of experience with running my vines onto untilled ground and just like you, I find far, far less weeds and easier to prevent those that do come or to get rid of them, and they aren’t ever as thick or healthy. In spite of this experience I never gave serious thought to leaving more untilled soil surrounding my plants out in my patch. I’ll no doubt be borrowing that idea!
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Could you share a little mor info on this? I’m always trying to improve my watering game. How long would you let them go without water? Thanks
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I don’t have any good way to quantify my water rates, I just tell you that I’m willing to bet I let them go without water much longer than you would think and they do better than you would think. Most years I never water a drop and rely only on natural rainfall. It is only in years of extreme drought that I drag out all the hose I need to get water to my watermelons.
One of the reasons that I almost never water is that watermelons are much more drought resistant than most plants I grow and more than most people think. Another reason is I find watering them just isnt all that effective. Sure it will keep them alive until the next real rain, but it is amazing to me how different the effect on the plants are when you water them with hoses/sprinklers vs rain. Even if I completely saturate the entire patch to the point of mud, the plants just sort of perk up a bit but most definitely do not put on the new growth spurts that results from rainfall. I can only speculate that rainfall has natural organic things (minerals, etc) that have been lost in treated water. I don’t know why really, but there is a dramatic difference in rain and watering with hoses.
I really wish I could be more help, but I just don’t know how to tell you when I find watering necessary other than to tell you it’s very rarely and only in extreme cases. Don’t over estimate watermelon’s need for water- they do remarkably well in hot dry conditions.
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My melons need water every 6 days in hot dry weather or they start losing leaves. That’s on good soil for the desert but somewhat droughty.
If irrigation didn’t work I’d never have grown them. Here at least they respond to irrigation the same as rain. But for those not used to watering it’s a lot more water than many might think. On an acre it takes 4 days running 24/7 to apply one inch with your typical 5 gpm hose output.
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That is really interesting! I don’t know what the difference is, but certainly there is one. It hasn’t rained here in 11 days and has been in the 90’s every day since the last rain and my melon plants are just as healthy and robust as they can be! They can easily go 2 weeks and probably more. And when it does become a problem, they don’t drop leaves like yours. Mine just eventually get to a point where they will wilt - a little more each day. At first they will perk back up at night when its cooler and the dew gives them a little moisture, then they wilt again in the heat of the day. Eventually they will just stay wilted and if they don’t get water, they will eventually just not come out of a full wilt. But I’ve never seen leaves fall off except at the very very end of the season after they have produced and are dying of “old age”. And I don’t have clay soil- I’d describe it as between loamy and sandy. When tilled my soil gets just like fluffy powder- almost like flower or something in texture when its completely dry and well tilled (except Brown of course).
We’ve had other discussions on this site about the differences in watering with irrigation and rainfall and its also interesting that you don’t find a big difference. I think others said that as well, and I know others had the same experience I do where irrigating doesn’t do anything close to rain in terms of creating plant growth and health. I’ve always been very curious about why its that way, but I honestly would rather have 1 inch of rain than 5 inches applied by my sprinklers and soaker hoses. Oh well…just one more example of how all gardening really is local! Big differences from one place to the next!
Your soil is likely better than mine. Plus when it’s dry here our dew points can be very low. So daily water use is well above TN with your 70F dew points. Our dry weather ended about the first of July. We’ve had 3+ inches of rain this month with high humidity, 60-65 dew points. I’ve only watered once in 18 days and that a light application. I wish the rain would stop. I’ve lost control. The melons are bigger but not as sweet.
I see rainy weather like this most summers along with long dry spells. I much prefer the dry weather for growing high quality fruit. We discuss that all the time on this site. Dry summers produce better tree fruits and melons IME.
I’m well aware of your belief that less water produces sweeter fruit…and I am 1000% convinced you are right. No doubt about it…both in terms of watermelon and tree fruit, I personally have noted a marked difference in sweetness and just general flavor concentration when its dry vs when we’ve had a very wet season.
You are definitely right also about us getting a lot of dew here. Even in dry times, early in the morning the grass and plants here are literally dripping wet just from Dew. While it may not get to the roots, I’m pretty sure my plants soak up enough of that through leaves to help them out some. At least I’ve always thought that was true but you’d know better than me… Can plants absorb water from leaves?
It’s not about dew on the leaves it’s about rate of transpiration, water loss, by the leaves. At 70F dew point water use is way less than at 40-50F dew points that we have during dry times. Your melons may be using 0.25 inch per day. During our dry weather it can be double that. Around here you never see people with wet shirts in summer. At those 70F dew points water is running down a guys back when out working.
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Ate my first two Ali baba this week. One was 33 lbs. They were pretty good although I should have let the smaller one ripen more. Is there any difference between Ali baba and Charleston Grey?
I also picked my first orangeglo. By any measure other than flavor it was perfectly ripe. The flavor was definitely sub-par. I’m hoping for better quality on the other ones. I’ve got a bunch still growing.
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