Not sure if this is where the watermelon belongs but I didn't see a melon forum ;)
This is my watermelon, it's growing like crazy. We have a few little bitty watermelons. I had this idea of creating a cage where the vine would grow up and over it then the fruit could rest on the ground outside the cage or be placed in a hammock or sling attached to the cage. I was hoping to save a bit of garden space this way. I have two green beans growing in the same bed. So far so good.
Laura
yep, this where watermelon belongs. I f you are concerned about space you may want to try one of the bush cultivars in the future,
It looks grreat Laura, and I like your EBs and raised beds! Have you looked into Square Foot Gardening? There are a few threads on DG about it, and a few web sites as well. I seem to recall Mel Bartholomew (the author) had a great way to grow the watermelon in the beds...
Keep us posted... Just planted my Watermelon seeds yesterday...
Laura, How is that watermelon plan going?
-Kim
Hi Kim,
It's getting huge!! This picture is from last week and it is already much bigger now! The plant itself is spreading all over the garden. I just go out each day and redirect it to a better area. The kids are soooo excited about the whole thing!
Laura
I tried doing the cage thing with sweettaters last year. OMG, I lost the cages in the vines. Took me forever to get the vines loose, BUT, I had no trouble finding my taters once I got the vines out of the cages.
Kathy
This will be my first year growing watermelon. I guess I thought they were hard to grow, maybe it is just all the room you need if they are not bush types. Learn somethin' every day. Well, I should wait until I actually have a melon I have grown to have an opinion!
That is a great thing you are teaching your kids Laura.
-Kim
I think a watermelon vine is a very easy thing to grow! The watermelon itself might be another story. We shall see! In the past I have had plenty of vine but only one melon that the critters got to before me. It was still fun to grow though.
Laura
I just bought a watermelon plant at Home Depot this morning. Its one of those yellow ones. Going on the website to see if I can look up the number and see what the name is. I sure hope this plant grows. Its a nice healthy plant.
I took the row cover off my corn, only to find a volunteer watermelon plant, which is, of course, WAY ahead of the ones I planted!
That is a tokinashi diakon radish right next to it. Don't know if it will be red or yellow, I had both planted in this area last year...
We picked our watermelon for Father's Day. I think it could have gone a little longer. It was sweet but with a bit of tart. I was just worried that some critter was gonna get it or that it would get mealy. I hate a mealy melon!
It was still delish and the kids ate so much that...well we won't go there ;-)
I don't think we will get anymore from this bush. In the beginning we had tons of little watermelon babies. About the size of a baby carrot but they turned brownish black and dropped off. We have one other melon growing but it is a bit deformed and doesn't seem to be increasing in size.
Laura
Another picture.
Laura, you've got good looking kids and they look mighty proud of that melon.
I was wondering if anyone has ever tried trimming the ends of the watermelon vines to help with space problems and maybe make the melons concentrate on the ones it has instead of vining out so much.
Sherri
Looks great Laura, congrats! I see your 4x are pretty happya bout their melon :-)
Cherishlife, it does help to prune, esp in short season areas. There is a book with the method in it. Basically borrowed from the French. You have to start the pruning from the beginning to do it that way though, like when it starts the third and fourth branch-off. Meanwhile, I have also heard that once you have a few melons going, just keep pinching off the extra blooms and vines, like you do with cukes, so the plant will concentrate on ripening what you have...
Oops! We've got way more vines than that. Thanks for the info, Tamara. I kept looking for a thread with my question in it and couldn't find it and since Laura was looking at trying to save space too, I thought she might be interested in it too.
