It’s all about timing when it comes to a watermelon. Sometimes the crop are good and other times it is not so much, but it rarely factors into luck. To get your plants growing well, you control the heat not the water. This visual explains the timeline and importance of each stage within certain temperatures. If you’re off the heat, game over.
First: The soil temperature trigger everything. If the soil is still below 70 degrees Fahrenheit, your seed will fail to sprout, and it will struggle even more if it is colder. The preferred soil temperature are 80; at that point, a seed will emerge from the soil in less than a couple of weeks. People garden too soon, too early. In more ways than one. Looking out the window at the calendar rather then the ground is why many gardeners makes the mistake of starting too soon. Cold soil causes seeds to rot before they ever sprout. Wait until the soil warms consistantly, not just in fits and spurts.
How to Grow Watermelons
If the vines has been running awhile now, then you’ve got to make up your mind: What type of a garden do you want to grow? Are you planting a long runner or one that stays compact and bushy? The chart will tell you. Depending on whether you’re growing a long runner or not, you’ll space them based off accordingly. For example, a long runner growing 12 to 20 feet is best grown with lots of room; so plan for wide row middles. Bush types tends to cover three to six feet, and work nicely in small plots and raised beds. They produce fewer fruit per vine, but those are big and sweet. Thinning out the plants to accommodate their habit helps, and you’d better match bed width to plant habit first if you want to thin.
The male flowers open up about day thirty-five; the females follow a few days after that. In an ideal world, bees take care of things, but with a low bee population or adverse weather you may have to step in here. It’s simple: simply rub the pollen of a male flower against a female flower (in the morning). This will cause the ovary to swell and mark your harvest date.
Quality comes from thinning (which always seems so cruel). Many little fruits will form, and if you don’t remove some, you’ll end up with small, underpowered melons. Force the plant to decide by removing most of its fruit, and it will produce just two or three per vine; which are the ones that win prizes. It simply cannot expend too much energy on more than one or two giants; they has to spend a hundred days or more filling out. It’s an art form.
How do you know? You can tell by the signs: the creamy yellow of the ground spot where it touches the melon, the browning of the tender part closest to the fruit, and a thump that is deep rather than high. It takes heat and patience, and restraint too. Start with warm soil, then respect the plant and give it room to grow. Watch out for the pollination window and thin ruthlessly. Wait for the dry tendril and cut at just the right moment when you notice the signs. You should of waited for the sign.