I want to grow some Sugar Baby and Black Tail. I’ve also got a variety with really cool seeds.
So far I have only grown two-bite watermelons.
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You and me both— just added a few more varieties because of this thread, lol.
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This forum is a bad influence. … I’ve acquired quite a bit since i became active
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I wanted to grow Wibb, but it was unavailable this year at Sand Hill. I’m not sure which variety to grow this year. I was thinking about Congo, but I have a lot of other varieties. I might just plant my oldest seeds to use them up.
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I have done a bit of old seed use this year! Trying for more as the season progresses.
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I have red moon and stars seedling I just got in the ground smaller than I should have- have you grown the moon and stars before? Good?
I’ve grown Yellow Moon & Stars for about 25 years off and on growing them for seed for Glenn at Sandhill Preservation. It is one of my top 3 watermelons. Flavor is outstanding and the vines are disease and pest tolerant.
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Great to know! Should I assume the red might be the same?
Red moon & Stars watermelon IMO is a coarse fleshed watermelon that is mediocre at best. I sometimes grow it, but it is not in my top 10 list of all time best watermelons. Yellow Moon & Stars is a far better watermelon.
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Thanks for the real life tip as everything online says the opposite. I’ll have to get some yellow for next year.
As with many things you can grow, the only real test is to grow it and see for yourself. Ask a person who has grown 10 varieties which is the best and you will get one answer. Ask someone who has grown over 100 varieties and you will get a very different answer.
Sometimes it is down to personal taste. One person likes a very sweet watermelon. Another is turned off by the cloyingly sweet taste. I’m more in the balanced group who likes both sweet and very flavorful fruits. Ledmon, Yellow Moon & Stars, and Wibb check all the boxes. Bradford if carefully selected is also top tier. Orangeglo is another of the very good watermelons. Of commercial varieties, Congo and Jubilee can be very good. I could name a few more but in the end this is just my opinion. Others will have different preferences.
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How do people like piel de sapo? Forgot I ordered seeds and they just showed up. Wondering if it’s worth direct sow right now.
I would suggest growing several varieties at first. If you know your specific disease look for resistance to that particular disease. Some will grow well for you and maybe not me.
I have never been able to get decent honeydews. I thought I given up but love the fruit so much this will be my last try after years of failure. I hope this one thrives. Only one way to find out.
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I bought a seedless watermelon from the store. It was decent enough, and had the little slips or whatever the term is for aborted seeds you would expect from a triploid watermelon. It also had… two pretty normal looking seeds. Black on the outside, etc. Any chance they germinate?
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Seedless WMs might not sprout and will not give you the type of WM you ate. Those need to be cross polinated so you will get the result of 2 different varities might be good might be bad.
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The big giant leaves are Egusi Melon. The plants under the teepee are luffas (need to get the netting up when I go home next weekend).
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I ended up planting Jubilee watermelons. I was going to do Congo, but I wanted to try something new. There was so much nutsedge when I direct sowed—a guarantee that I’ll be weeding a lot.
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I ended up planning 15 Orange glo and 15 Jubilee watermelon plants. I thought I was cutting back but ended up planning more than last year. Bad habits.
Tony
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I have 14 hills of Yellow Moon & Star watermelon plants that currently have 6 foot long runners and a few small watermelons already set. Each hill is 2 plants so 28 plants total. Hills are about 10 feet apart in the row.
Jubilee is an outstandingly good watermelon. I’ve had them in the past that were top of the tip top best ever grown.
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Thanks for writing this. I’ve saved seeds we found from Yumi, and didn’t realize it’ll be a cross with whatever I have growing next to it. I assume the resulting melons will have seeds? We’ll see what next year bring.
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