So, after growing beautiful, huge heirloom watermelons like Ledmon, Charleston Grey, Alibaba, Blacktail Mountain for at least 5 years with almost zero problems, suddenly I started having wilting and dying plants.
The last 2 years have really been a struggle and I started using non-heirloom that are more disease resistant but they die too.
After researching a lot, I’m pretty sure I have Fusarium Wilt. I know that I could try to graft watermelon onto bottle gourd but I’m concerned about whether that affects the taste of the melons. Also, I’ve never grafted anything, so for now I gave up on growing watermelons.
My question is, has anybody tried growing a large sized watermelon in a container? I envison covering an area in my garden to prevent soil/plant contact and growing in a pot with potting soil.
You may try adding more beneficial microbes to your soil to “dilute”, or outcompete the fusarium. There are many premade microbe additives that have myco boots and bacteria boosts. I prefer those to just the mycoboost products. Recharge (by real growers) and great white both are loaded with glomus and trichoderma fungus as well as several lactobacillus bacteria.
Fusarium is a very common problem in (word that rhymes with bannabis) growing and is very frequently abated in this manner. For organic ( word that rhymes with bannabis) growers this is the preferred method to combat fusarium, and still have a product that passes microbiological contaminants testing. I would water it in every 2 weeks around the watermelon, or every time you use a salt based fertilizer. The salts knock back the microbes diversity quite a lot when microbe diversity is tested after fertilizer use. It gives a leg up to pathogens like fusarium to dominate the soil. I would also add it to the raised bed several times before planting the watermelon.
Honestly, both of those products are not the cheapest product at the nursery. I have shifted myself to using more KNF practices to harvest the local IMO (indigenous micro organisms) in my own raised beds. Leaf litter and cardboard left out though the wet seasons together ontop of “less” disturbed untilled parts of your soil works great. Many others look for wood chips or litter on nature hikes that has white mycelium or bacteria culture visibly growing on it. Then take a pinch or scoop into a baggy to culture into your own leaf litter. Another way is to burry a nylon sock or bag filled with dry rice on the edge of undisturbed over growth. Dig it up 14 days later and it will be permeated with IMO starter. Just sprinkle it out into your bed once it looks fuzzy.
Side note: when I do a control and experiment to leaf litter debris piles that I compost down, the ones I hit with a microbe booster break down into soil in 1/2-1/3 the time through the cold winter. No turning necessary. I stack the leaves as tall as me some autumns. Like when I can scoop my neighbors they leave curbside for the city as well as mine. Happy growing and good luck with the watermelons.
Ha, I almost spit out my coffee. I thought you turned over a new leaf with a like. I am sorry that every garden tip I have is s**t since it may or may not also be relevant in word that rhymes with bannabis gardening.
@anon18642480, you have a lovely garden. I particularly like seeing your jujube trees.
What is the problem? I’m kind of confused what the issue is here. The post was saying “here’s something cannabis growers do that might be helpful for watermelon growers,” that shouldn’t violate any rules on here as far as I know.
I agree. I don’t see that there is an issue, in fact not in the least. Referencing information that is freely available does not constitute a tacit endorsement of cannabis growing or use. Moreover, it furthers the conversation as there are myriad practices pioneered by cannabis growers that are potentially applicable to growing fruit. This is largely because the legal and social environment created a situation in which clever bootstrappers stood to make a lot of money. Those kind of evolutionary pressures, so to speak, don’t exist anymore largely with the advent of decriminalization in much of the country. The fact that it’s hard to make good money growing fruit means that pace of knowledge development and acquisition is commensurately slow. Thus the beauty of a forum like this, where we can pool our resources and learn from as broad a knowledge base as possible.
What about bully’s? If I was on the playground I would have to tell my trusted adult that a bully keeps picking on me. Good thing I have thick skin and a smile. Happy growing.
