Hello @rayrose
I got tempted by your posts on orangeglo and ordered a pack of seeds. I have never grown watermelons before; what advice can you give me?
I plan to start the seeds indoors and transplant in ground late April. My growing season is typically mid April to mid October.
Ahmad,
I always direct seed, so I can’t advise you about growing starts.
Watermelons need LOOSE soil, and lots of water, especially when young, if there isn’t adequate rain fall. Do a soil test, before you plant, so you’ll know, if your soil needs amending. You need at least 4 ft. spacing between plants at a minimum, the more the better. Here’s
some good general information that applies to SC, but will work almost anywhere.
Thanks @rayrose … Do you let more than one melon grow on the same plant, or keep only one per plant?
A single watermelon plant can usually support 3 watermelons.
If starting seed indoors, do NOT start them earlier than 3 weeks before setting the plants outdoors. Watermelons are not tolerant of being rootbound. They need a 1 gallon pot just to keep them growing properly for 3 weeks.
My experiences are the same. Watermelons do not tolerate being root bound well. I start them indoors only to make sure they gemanate well. A heat pad is very helpful. I plant them right after they germinate.
I agree that a plant can support 3 melons simultaneously and still make good quality melons. If you want to spread out your harvest, let one set, pick the others off for the next 10 or 15 days, then let another one set, then pick the others off for the next 10 or 15 days, then keep on that schedule. The alternative is to let 3 of them set, wait until they are ripe (33 to 45 days) then let 3 more set.
We have excellent watermelon soil here. I planted Mountain Donkeys Orangeglo/White wonder Blend last year. Sowed them straight in the ground and by the time winter came i had gotten 50- 60 Watermelons off of them…Maybe more…
The plant will decide how many melons it can carry and mature.
Since the rest will be naturally aborted, I never mess with mother
nature, except to remove the ones that have already been aborted.
I had a single Big Stripe volunteer that carried 8 melons to maturity
with an average weight of 47lbs. The largest was 68 lbs. and they
were the best melons I’ve ever grown.
Love your netting set up. How are they fasten to the ground? Just bricks?
Yes just bricks
Amazing… I have never seen such big melon, let alone eight of them on the same vine…
There is a lot to be said for climate. Watermelons love a long warm growing season allowing the vines to grow large to support more melons. Zone 8 is a lot more favorable than zone 6a, 110 miles from the Canadian boarder. I use cold frames over my melons to get an earlier start and keep them covered for as long as possible for additional heat. Even after all of that, my vines typically don’t grow large enough before the cold starts setting in to reliably support more than 3 melons at top quality.
@rayrose Do you know if OG is susceptible to the bacterial wilt disease transmitted by cucumber beetles? The beetle/disease is very common here and I stopped trying to grow Persian cucumber (which is my favorite) because of its high susceptibility…
I’ve never had that problem.
@rayrose my Orangeglo plants started blooming about 10 days ago, and today I discovered a tiny melon, about half inch long. In your experience, how many days does it take from here to ripeness? In my location, we continue to have warm weather (day temperature in the eighties) till mid/late September, and I am wondering if I have enough time to ripen a few or not…
They should ripen in 8 weeks or thereabouts. Smaller watermelons can ripen in 6 weeks from fruit set to maturity. Larger melons can take 10 to 12 weeks. Orangeglo is about 8 or 9 weeks.
Ahmad,
Once you get fruit set, it will take roughly 35 days or so. But
each melon is different. A good way to judge ripeness on OG,
is the under side will develop orange streaks. If you don’t see
orange streaks, it isn’t ripe.
My first ever Orangeglo. Weighed 24 lbs. It had several signs of ripeness, looked ripe from inside and it was good. The flavor and sugars were probably watered down because of all the rain and because of the clay soil that I have… The color is light orange, not as bright as Ray’s, either because of growing conditions, a little premature picking or not the right variety!
Congratulations Ahmad,
The melon looks good, but it could be a little riper, but you did
great for your first one.
My second Orangeglo was 34.5 lbs, fully ripe and very tasty… Thanks @rayrose for recommending this excellent variety!
