Planting watermelons this time of year? When will those ripen?
In South Florida we have two crops. I was really 2 weeks late so am testing my skills. lol Sugar babies & Yellow Doll should be ripe Middle to late Nov. That is a guess but will be very close! Orangeglo is blowing up in size and I have 2. I will get those first 2 weeks of Dec. along with Crimson Sweet, Leelanau, Golden Honey, Legacy, Legendary, and Orange Crisp. Jubilee will hit right after. I can start my second grow out in Dec also but with care.
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Want to see what people doing with watermelon rotation? Recommended interval is 3 years that is very difficult (I would say impossible) for most home gardeners. When it comes to 1 year rotation, that is simple to achieve but sometimes requires hard decisions. To rotate, you often need to compromise on best sunny spot and number of plants to grow. I have a spot 18X14 where I can grow 6 plants. I hoped to do a “cheated” rotation - to have two rows 18’ X 2 ’ in the middle of that spot with a 1 foot space between them . So rotation will be just switching rows every year. The top of the soil will be covered with heavy duty landscaping fabric and I will sterilize it every year with hydrogen peroxide. Fresh compost will be added in fall to the next year row. This is the plan. Not sure how helpful is such “rotation”. Alternative is a spot between young fruit trees that gets just about 7 hours of sun started 11 AM and it can be just 3-4 plants there. And only while trees are small. They planted about 15’ apart .
Keep in mind that watermelon roots extend as far as the vine grows by end of the season. You can certainly give it a go until problems show up. I would want as much sun as possible growing watermelons and early morning sun so vines dry off quickly.
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Sounds like ideal climate.
Here is a Jubilee roaring along. The seed was planted on Sept 7th so has been 60 days from seed. The other seeds were planted on Sept 12th. There are 4 good sized Jubilee melons and about 6 nice sized Crimson sweets that you cannot see. All in all there are about 30-40 melons on the vines with a total of 16 plants spaced in the wide row method of gardening with 3 ft between plants each way. I should be harvesting Jubilee’s like I said, the 1st week of Dec and some Crimsons and Sugar Babies the end of this month. The vines are out to 52 ft now and pushing hard.
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Wow, very healthy-looking vines and fruit. I guess Florida has its advantages.
Actually we have the worst climate for diseases and insect pressure. I hold a license for pest control with a degree from UF in the study of insects and diseases so after 30 plus years, I have it down pat. Also, they would never look like this without massive feeding as both soluble and slow release, fungicides, and systemic insect control. I just measured the vines at a 58 ft spread. I will put your Star Brite melon to the test in 8 more weeks. See how it does against my other heavy hitters like Summer Flavor #720 and 12 others. Just like yourself, we have to know are own particular climate and make adjustments.
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How crisp is your Star Brite ? I will be growing it out for the 1st time in Jan. See how it compares to some other big fruits in that class like Summer Flavor #720
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It’s not crisp like many seedless varieties. I’d think you probably have better varieties. Our growing conditions are very different.
I mist your reply, thanks for info. I have read as much as I could find and obviously crispness of fruit is in the genes, not really the environment. I only have grown one seedless and that is Orange Crisp. I am not wanting hard, those are seedless types most of the time. With crispness quality, there is a major difference! Crispness can and should still be tender, and that is a fine line and many do not have it. I have read Star Brite is med firm and one description (probably trying to sell seed) lists it as crisp. Anyway, a big commercial grower grows only Star Brite, Summer Flavor, and Royal Sweet. I just found the article after I decided on both of these big ones along with Royalty. Royalty has replaced Royal Sweet at least in one seed catalog called True Leaf.
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I have my grow outs in Florida so am having double the trouble for I have 2 crops a year and so that means I need 6 plots for my watermelon if I want to have that 3 year rotation, in which I am doing. So on the 4th year I am growing on the start up plot. To avoid Gummy Stem blight problems, they recommend 2 years minimum. You could have major problems with GSB on virgin soil, trust me. lol
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Of all the varieties I have growing in this fall grow out, I have been most impressed by the performance of Sugar Baby. It happens to also be the cheapest seed I purchased. I have always heard how seedy it is, but grown here, the watermelon was actually lacking seeds if anything. I ate a 1/4 wedge of this watermelon and could not gather past 10 seeds for 1/4 of this whole melon, which is incredible. My mother described the flavor as to what she remembered as a child or what she also described as to when I was a little kid in the 60’s. Anyway, it was a 9.5 on my scale due to it’s fine grained texture, over the top sweetness, and decent size at 11 lbs. I hit the timing just right which can be a problem with this melon as many might know, that holding off from picking for a week after the tendril turns crisp, is many times a good idea. This one I picked after 8 days with a crisp tendril.
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Glad that was a enjoyable melon for you. I haven’t grown a Sugar Baby in 20 years. All I remember is that it was seedy and had an aftertaste I didn’t care for compared to most I was growing.
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Thank you! It is very interesting to see others comment on taste comparisons and all else. Blacktail mountain was a seed infested watermelon for me and I stopped growing it. Jubilee is a nice melon but the seed count has me considering not growing it this Spring.