There are a multitude of methods for growing watermelons.
You’ll find out, through experimentation, what works best for
your location, and is the easiest to apply. The main thing melons
need are sunlight, heat, water, and loose soil. If you have those
four essentials, it’s hard to fail.
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Mini Love Watermelon. Exactly as advertised. 13.5 Brix and really good down to the thin rind. I think this is a winner for short season growers. I picked it as soon as the bloom disappeared. Next year I am going to try direct seeding instead of transplant.
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Last summergold of the year sure gonna enjoy every bite. Wish I had a Brix tester because this variety has been super sweet all season.
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Thanks for mentioning the Mini Love, after reading more reviews, it sounds like a heavy bearing, compact vine with smaller leaves. I’ve put it on the garden list for next year!
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Watermelons are a little behind here, but they’re alive and doing better than I thought they would when the season started. Harvested the first of the season today, a little Kaho. Weighed a bit over 5 lbs. Was dead ripe and had excellent texture, but not quite as sweet as I like. Still, not bad at all and a lot better than no melon. Rind is very thin. Rather seedy, but the seeds are actually quite soft and not at all unpleasant. They were easy to eat along with the melon.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be harvesting any Zatta or Kajari melons. This has been an especially bad year for squash bugs and cucumber beetles----and, thanks to the latter, bacterial wilt has pretty much wiped out my C. melo patch. The dratted things got established during an early season rainy spell and I’ve just not been able to achieve satisfactory control with neem + karanja oil and spinosad + Beauveria bassiana.
Cucumbers have been hit badly with the wilt this year, too—and I rarely have problems with it. Wouldn’t have had any cukes at all if I hadn’t been growing the hybrid bush variety Alekseich. It is susceptible to bacterial wilt, but because it goes into production so fast, the plants have been able to produce some before succumbing. Every other cultivar collapsed before producing much.
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I’m sorry to hear about your pest plight. We too have significant issues with squash bugs and cucumber beetles, with the former being much worse than the latter for us. My wife has given up on pumpkins because of them. Heck, I killed a squash bug on a popcorn stalk yesterday.
For some reason, though, they haven’t caused a problem with our watermelons. Here’s part of a 21-lb Raspa we picked yesterday. I just cut it up a few minutes ago.
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I pulled out the hill of melons that hadn’t set any fruit yet. Don’t want melons in October. It’ll leave more space for the others.
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I wouldn’t normally post pictures in this thread as I can’t compete with real watermelon growers with my mini melons on mini space. But this year my sugar baby decided that one kid is plenty, and only set one fruit. Here it this “Baby”
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First ripe watermelon of the year at my patch here in Kansas. This is a crimson sweat and it is really good! About 75 to 100 more crimson sweat, black diamond, Charleston gray, jade star, jubilee improved, and sangria yet to come. First year trying to grow watermelons. Sure enjoy reading this topic and look forward to trying to plant some of the varieties others have posted about!
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That’s a nice big Sugar Baby! You’re definitely a real watermelon grower. 
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It’s fortunate watermelons are resistant to bacterial wilt—or I’d probably just throw in the towel! Of course, if it weren’t for bugs and diseases and lousy weather, there’d be no real challenge to gardening, would there? At least, that’s what I keep telling myself . . . . 
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Freaking deer are eating mine unripe! I’ve got plenty though, since I planted a ton, only ~55 days from transplant for Verona, Little Baby Flower and Sorbet Swirl F2s. Lopes are all getting belly rot, only had two make it so far 
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Lopes will go from ripe to rot in just one day, so you have to
watch them every day. It also helps to place each on top of something,
in order to keep it off the ground. Verona is a good variety, but haven’t
grown it in a long time.
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I strung fishing line around today, hopefully that keeps the deer out. Looks like coyotes are also getting in on the action though.
I set a bunch of lopes onto 2 stakes to keep them off the ground, but there’s just too many, so I checked the rest, pulled 4-5 that were starting to detach rather than waiting for them to do it themselves, one that was not but was going soft on the bottom, it was still OK, and flipped any that looked close to ripe over onto a new spot on the ground cover with the ground spot facing upwards to dry out… hopefully that helps.
One of them had this going on, not sure what causes it.
And a correction to my last post, Sugar Baby was ripe in ~55 days, Looks like only one Verona that will be about 20#, 2x the size of the SBs, and still a week or so away from ripe.
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Dessert King in all sizes! Best melon i had this year! My mother and i are feasting on pears and watermelons! Some from the drought are cantaloupe sized and others are 20 pounds!
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First watermelon of the season.
Charleston Gray. I did not weigh it but guessing around 15-18lbs.
Very good taste, not super sweet, but probably would have sweetened up a bit if I left it sit another 4-5 days since there is no rain in the forecast.
My wife and I both observed that it was much smoother and juicer than store bought and as a bonus, you could eat right to the rind with no loss of melon flavor.
I’m still waiting on my Georgia Rattlesnake to ripen. I may pull one tomorrow to try as they are right around their 90 day mark.
-Jim
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Great observation, and great job on the melon! Regarding the flavor, there simply is no comparison between a store-bought seedless and one of these homegrown melons.
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