Watermelon Growing

Marie,
What did you feed your OG plants with?!!! My two plants set one melon each. I know people whose OR did not even set a melon. Please tell us your secret.

Are those Truck Busters?

Mamuang, I planted several patches of watermelons in different locations. Out of them only this plant produced so many watermelons. It was grown indoors, which made it to be about two weeks ahead than the in ground planted plants. We had rather hot and dry summer this year. I added an organic fertilizer for vegetables 1-2 times but only in June. I sprayed these watermelons with Bt and I am not sure if it helped, but at some point of the season the other patches of watermelons (not sprayed) began to look worse and wilted, whereas this patch remained green and even set more fruits. I am new to growing watermelons, so I can not say exactly what is the reason behind the high production.

My vines now looked like they are having powdery mildew. Not sure what to do or if it is worth doing anything.

My watermelon plants are starting to wilt and die. I’m still waiting for my one and only Orangeglo to ripen. Luckily that vine is doing ok so far. Hopefully won’t catch whatever is going on with the rest.

A few more pics. I picked a nice black diamond early. The rest where pretty good

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If that wasn’t your best year, @thepodpiper, I’d like to see what is!

We finished off the last OrangeGlo last night. Well, there’s one more in the garden at about 8-10 lbs, but I don’t think it’ll be ready before cool weather moves in. It looks like I’ll have a small 2nd crop of Blacktail Mountains, which we will be able to eat in minutes.

Then I will have to wait a year to eat some fresh watermelon. I need to plant some that grow big–not wasting time and space on 8-lb’ers.

Some are TB"s and some Raspa. I will weigh the TB melons today if the rain holds out.

So I can’t decide if this Orangeglo is ripe. What do you think? Forecast says another 10 days of high 70’s weather. So there’s a chance it will continue to ripen if it is not already. But I don’t want it to get overripe either.

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When did the frut set? It is supppose to take 85-90 days. I am not sure if mine would ripen in time.

Fruit set mid August. 90 days is from transplant right? Not fruit set? So 6 weeks or 45 days from fruit set seems reasonable for it to ripen?
Actually I don’t want to mess this up. So I might as well wait 10 or so more days until frost kills it. That way I won’t be kicking myself that I still had few more days and picked it too early.

You asked the wrong person :).

I thought it was 85 days from fruit set. Maybe, someone like @rayrose could enlighten us.

Ray, when it says OG is 85 days , is it from the day the seed germinates or the say a fruit set, please?

I thought it was 85 days from the day it was planted? If its not I learned something new …

I have no clue. If counted from the day it was planted, then I would not need to worry about not having enough warm days.

Blacktail Mountain, 70 days.
Planted July 2
Fruit set july 16
Picked Sept 26
73 days from fruit set.


It was a bit overripe. Maybe, if we picked it at 69-70 day point, it would be just right.

When we picked it, that week, the weather was a record warmth for late Sept. I remembered picking it up off the ground, the wm was very warm.
I have my own method of counting the ripening days.

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That looks great! So 70 days huh?
Mm… I should definitely leave mine until frost then.

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I really don’t know.

To me if 70 days mean from seeds sprouted to picking, I should have picked BM by Sept 10. I would think the fruit would not have ripened then.

It does not make sense to me to count ripening days from the day seeds sprout. What if your watermelons set fruit 1- 3 weeks apart? By that method, don’t you need to pick every wm on the same days?

I don’t know. I have never grown watermelons before.

But most info on line I’ve seen says counting fronm the day seeds sprout.
I have two OG that I don’t know when to pick, either.

Hey @mamuang! The one thing I actually thought about the most in my absence is how you ended up doing with melons. That BM looks a tiny bit overripe but you should be thrilled…were you? I couldn’t tell from your comments how happy you were. I think for a first year and getting a fairly late start (for your area, after your first ones didn’t develop) that you did wonderful!!! Are you doing watermelons again this year?

BTW…to answer your questions, the Days to Ripe that the seed companies use is suppossed to be from the day the seeds are planted until melon is ripe. That being said, in my experience melons can ripen not just days but WEEKS sooner and later than the “average ripening days” the seed companies put. Many, many things can affect ripening.

What about your OG?

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Kevin,
So glad you showed up and gave the answer. I was so peroccupied and puzzled by how to count the ripening date that I did not mention how happy I was with the BM.

If counting from germination, my OG is reaching 90 days at about now. Maybe, I should pick it tomorrow.

Post some photos of top and bottom and maybe Ray and I and others can help you decide. I will say that OG’s are one melon that goes down hill pretty fast after they get ripe. They will get inside cracks and hollow areas and the meat will get soft. That being said, picking one too soon is also not good at all. But if your plants are looking bad, it probably won’t ripen much more anyway. But only you can decide in the end.