What Season Do Sugar Baby Watermelons Grow in?

While watermelons tin can be dandy as treats, they tin can be a piddling hard to piece of work with as crops. Withal, with a little know-how and preparation, you can easily have them growing in your garden.

Up for the claiming? Read on and learn how to grow your own watermelons.

How practise watermelons abound?

Unlike almost crops, watermelons grow on vines that abound out of the initial sprout and can grow to be 6 metres long. The number of vines determines how many watermelons there are per plant as each vine tin can produce between two to four melons during the growing season.

Getty

Where to plant watermelons

Watermelons grow all-time in a planting site that has a lot of open up space. Watermelon vines constitutional, then your plants are going to spread out around your garden as they grow. Watermelon plants are also heavy feeders, so you might need to prepare compost if yous don't have nutrient-rich soil.

The all-time time to plant watermelon

If you live in the Australia's temperate zone, seeds need to be sown sometime between October and December when daily temperatures boilerplate around 20-25 °C. If the weather still isn't warm enough effectually that time, you tin start your seeds indoors in containers like a small pot or a germination tray.

This style, yous'll be able to control how warm the soil can get. Merely make sure to transfer the seedling to your garden equally soon as you tin as larger seedlings won't transplant well.

Getty

Ideal soil conditions for watermelon

You also need to set up mounds of soil to sow the seeds in every bit they volition drain h2o faster than soil on flat ground. These mounds of soil as well tend to be warmer, which is ideal for tropical fruit like watermelon. For nigh varieties, the seeds should be sown an inch deep into a 6-12 inch tall mound.

Do watermelons need lots of water?

Watermelons require a thorough watering one time a week. One time the seeds have germinated, give your plants an inch of water every week. A trivial scrap of balanced fertiliser each week can also exist good for your plants every bit watermelons take a lot of nutrients from the soil and compost. Information technology's too a good idea to add together mulch to the soil as it helps with retaining moisture and driving away weeds that can interfere with the growth of your plants.

How long does information technology take to abound a watermelon?

On average, it takes effectually iii months for a watermelon to abound from seed to mature fruit, with smaller varieties having shorter growing times than larger varieties of watermelon.

Getty

Flowering

Around 2 weeks after your vines start rambling, your watermelon plants should get-go flowering, with the smaller male flowers showing up first and the fruit-begetting female person flowers appearing presently after.

In most cases, the bees in your garden should be able to pollinate all your flowers for yous. Even so, if yous don't accept that many bees, y'all can also pollinate them yourself.

Harvesting watermelons

Knowing when to harvest your watermelons tin be a bit tricky equally at that place aren't any surefire ways of checking whether the fruit is set for picking.

For a lot of gardeners, a chocolate-brown and stale upward tendril most the watermelon is a good sign that the fruit is set. You can also endeavor lightly thumping your duke on the watermelon to see if it produces the hollow sound a ripe watermelon should brand.

Neither of these techniques is an verbal science, so information technology might take you a piffling bit of practice before yous can consistently tell when your melons are ready for harvest.

Getty

Growing tips

We know watermelons tin be a lilliputian tricky to deal with, so we've come up with a couple of tips that tin make life a little easier for you.

1. Use open-pollinated or heirloom seeds

If y'all desire to abound the healthiest watermelons, be sure to use these ii kinds of seeds instead of the hybrid varieties often seen in shop-bought melons. Open-pollinated varieties are often more resilient than other kinds of seeds, and heirloom seeds tend to produce improve fruit.

2. Sow more seeds than you lot demand

Since you won't go a practiced establish out of every seed you sow, yous'll exist better off sowing as many seeds every bit you tin and trimming away weaker seedlings.

three. Train the vines on a trellis

If you don't have a lot of infinite in your garden, yous can train the vines to climb up a trellis instead of spreading all over your yard. While this takes a footling more time and effort on your function, you'll free upwardly a lot more space.

iv. Regularly prune your vines

Once your vines start rambling, be on the lookout for rotten parts that need to be clipped away with sterilised tools. If these rotting parts stayed on the vines, the leaner and fungi might spread and damage the balance of the institute.

v. Plant helpful crops side by side to your watermelons

Watermelons take in a lot of nutrients, so soil-enriching crops like beans and other legumes make for excellent companion plants. You can even incorporate these plants into your crop rotation organisation so that your garden tin can be prepare for watermelons for the next growing season.

How to grow parsley, indoors or outside

How to cut a watermelon in 1 minute

5 amazing watermelon hacks

wilsonmeleat.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.bhg.com.au/how-to-grow-watermelon

Share this post