Watermelons in '08

[Alan]

So this year will mark the first year that I have tried to plant, harvest, and market a major watermelon crop and I hope it goes really well. Anyhow, I just wanted to take the time to ask for the advice of anyone here whom has had luck with their watermelon crop in the past, what kind of mulch? Direct seed or start plants? What kind of soil? What kind of water requirements? Any advice and help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.


Heres a short list of what I am growing:

Crimson Sweet
Sugar Baby
Golden Midget
Charleston Grey
Orange Glo
Orange Tendersweet
Yellow doll (and an OP yellow I can't remember)
Cream of Saskathewon
White Beauty

and about 10 others I can't remember off the top of my head, these are in a mass cross that Ken Ettlinger of Long Island seed sent to me.

Thanks for your help,
Alan

[americangardener]

Good luck with the watermelons.

I'm not so sure i can offer any help.. watermelons are one of the hardest crops for me to grow with our short season. Bout all i can suggest is you start em in the greenhouse to make sure they'll have enough time to mature. Then there's the problems with cucumber beetles.. they seem to favor the watermelons and cantaloupes over cucumbers. Bout the only good way to keep em off the plants is with the floating row covers.

From your list the orange melons will probably be the best sellers.. they are very popular with everyone i've met. Especially the orange tendersweet.. haven't tried the orange glo yet but i might next season.

Around here with my clay soil.. i've found that they love alot of organic matter like leaves mixed in with the soil. The more organic matter the bigger they get. They can take alot of watering too... although i probably don't give mine nearly enough. I don't mulch mine, but i'd choose the straw over plastic if you have enough straw... but then again if you do have problems with the beetles it might just provide em with a nice environment for laying their eggs and for hiding out. That's something you may have to consider. Other than that.. just plenty of sun and lots of room to spread out.

Good luck with em.. i hope someone else more knowledgeable will give ya some advice.

Dave

[Alan]

I'm debating on exactly where to plant the watermelons, I'm not sure if they will do better in a higher but drier spot or a lower but moister spot. We have plenty of time for them to mature here in Southern Indiana, even when grown from seed they grow really fast which is probably how I will end up growing them. I am planing on fertilizing with cow manure and a lot of vermicompost. As a matter of fact 90% of the vermicompost will go to nothing but squash and watermelons this year most likely. I'm definetly going to mulch them in good with something though I'm not yet sure what, more than likely plastic or planters paper, I would prefer to go with something bio-degradable. I really hope that they do well, they few I have grown in the past with minimal inputs did ok, so maybe with a little TLC they will excel. I know I am really excited about the prospects either way.

-Alan

[canadamike]

If you can get horse manure go for it. But please please try a small shovelful of alfalfa meal mixed in the soil not too far from the roots. They need water though, I would edge my bets and try 2 beds, one in each spot. The drier spot might be ok after all...at the very least you would be able to compare yields.

[bluelacedredhead]

Fedco has great info on growing melons in the north. Basically, they say to only grow one plant per hill which means less competition for roots, then the plants get on to the real work of growing vines and melons earlier. It worked like a charm for me here last year.

[Alan]

Thanks for the information on Fedco blue and I'll try their suggestions.


Mike I'll give the alfalfa meal a try this year two and will have to grow them in a few different spots to keep my color mixes seperate. One for a mass cross of white types, one for a mass cross of yellow and orange types, one for a mass cross of red types, one for my favorite melon Charleston Grey, and a seperate plot for the orange red bi-color mass crosses.

[jtcm05]

I grew sugar baby last year. My first experience with watermelons. I direct-seeded three plants in a 4x12' rasied bed and harvested about 3 fruit per plant. What a treat it was to eat freshly picked watermelon! I think if I had a longer growing season, or maybe started the seed a couple weeks earlier inside I may have had a little better production. There were a few tennis ball-sized fruit still on the vines when I yanked them at frost.

[Alan]

I thought about starting the seeds in the greenhouse and then transplanting, but I hate having to spend so much time and resources "watering in" a large field of cantaloupe and watermelon starts when I could instead just pre-soak some seeds overnight and direct sow and allow "survival of the fitest" to take place in my breeding and seed saving populations, sure I may loose a couple of types, but theres nothing here thats too increadibly rare and I'm all for direct seeding where possible.

Having said that, I will as always start some plants in the greenhouse for sale because people will buy them like usual.

[doccat5]

I use leaves under my melons for mulch, I've found they seem to repel a lot of pests, so don't have to much trouble with that. DH and I spend considerable time "snagging" bags of leaves during the season. Interesting sight watching 2 old plp grabbing up those leaf bags just laughing and grinning with excitement! LOL

[Alan]

I think I'm going to mulch just about everything with newspapper runoff roles and straw just to see how it does, that also will help me get the organic matter content up and keep me from having to spend so much time removing harmful plastic from the soil.

Either way I'll have plenty of plots to play with since I will have to some amount of isolation of different colors of melons for the mass crosses and different areas for the very rare melons I want to keep pure. I'm getting pretty excited.

Has anyone here ever grown any of the other white watermelons other than cream of saskathewan, I ordered two from Baker Creek and I'm kind of anxious to give them a try.

-Alan

[deerrun]

We always start our Watermelons in the greenhouse first. We plant on Black plastic mulch and use drip irrigation to water. Watermelons grow really well here in our sandy soil. We have the best luck at market with our red seedless varieties, but also tried Orangelo from Baker Creek last year and they did really well. I actually thought they were one of the better ones for flavor. We also grow Jubilee, Sugar Baby, and this year we are adding Ali Baba.
Last year we only did a few acres, and will likely up that a little this year to closer to five. Keep in mind we do 5 markets a week.

[Alan]

I don't grow seedless varieties here so as to keep "mule" type crosses from hapening with our breeding material.

So far I've got three mass cross mixes:

Red Fleshed-Close to 70 varieties

Yellow and Orange fleshed-about 45 varieties

White Fleshed-four varieties.

One problem we have here is heavy red clay, though I have improved the soil a lot by adding lots of Organic Matter. This year I'll be buying a tri-axle load of sand to spread on the melon field. We will see how that does.

Five markets a week is a lot, very similar to what we do, but we cut a couple of markets out to focus on CSA and restraunt sales which has worked out well for us.