Watermelon is one of the coolest crops to grow in the summer and the crop that
takes up a lot of space, a lot of time, a lot of love.
So let's figure out how to NOT make these mistakes when you're growing them.
This watermelon right here, which I have lovingly named Eric,
because so many of you think my name is Eric, and I don't know why that is.
So Comment down below if you know why you think of me as Eric and not Kevin.
But, this guy right here is one of the biggest watermelons I've ever grown.
Cause I've never really grown it before. Cause I've never had the space.
Those of you long-time Epic Gardening followers,
you know I used to grow in a small front yard urban garden.
If I grew a watermelon, I mean, look how much space this takes up.
It would have taken up half my whole garden.
I couldn't have grown almost anything else. So, I've had success this year.
We'll see, at the end of the video,
I'm going to cut this open and we'll see if my money is where my mouth is and
this is actually a delicious watermelon.
But cultivate that Like button and I will bless you with abundantly.
Juicy watermelon.
And let's get into the video.
Mistake number one that you can make is overwatering,
which seems classic but it's a specific phase of the plant's life where you can
overwater.
And it's right about at this point when the watermelon is coming ripe.
It doesn't need a lot of water at this point. Kind of counterintuitive.
But what that can do is,
once it gets to its final size - the size that its genetic sort of
predeterminate to be - it's not going to get much larger.
And so if you're pumping more water through the plant tissue,
it's going to burst it. You don't want that. So that's problem number one.
That can really ruin the watermelon completely.
But number two is that you can actually dilute the flavor because the more water
that's in the tissue, the less concentrated the sugars are,
which means you have a less sweet watermelon. Hold up.
Is this an avocado in my watermelon patch? No. In fact,
what it is is just simply an unpollinated fruit.
This happens a lot with different plants that have a male and female flower.
Sometimes that pollen just doesn't make it from the male to the female.
So there are two ways that you can deal with this. One is manual.
One is somewhat automatic. The manual one is just a hand pollination method.
All you'll do is grab pollen with a toothbrush or a Q-tip, something like that,
from a male flower when you see it open and bring it over manually to the female
flower and brush it inside. That'll guarantee pollination.
And then what you can do is what I've done here and just put in some pollinator
attracting plants. Like these sunflowers are fantastic.
Really so many different plants. We have videos on that here on the channel.
But that'll do it automatically because they're going to be here buzzing away,
drinking of the fruit of the sunflower. And they will say, hey, look,
there's a male flower out. Let's go ahead and pollinate and job is done.
Mistake number three has to do with disrespecting the watermelon's name. Water,
melon. Water those melons, guys. You can underwater them.
It is certainly possible. They are 90% water.
And it seems obvious that this would be something to avoid. Nevertheless,
what happened to me here in this patch?
I underwatered my watermelons and they got off to a slow start.
So there's a couple of things that you can do to mitigate this. Of course,
maybe your soil mix is a little bit off. You might need to fix that.
But something that we've done here at Epic Gardening is we created mounds.
We watered in a mound.
So we created like a little hill here and then made a depression and sowed our
seeds in that depression. And then also mulched the depression.
So you're kind of creating a volcano with a crater at the top.
And then you're going to put 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 watermelon seeds in here.
And once they germinate, you'll then cull it down to about three,
maybe four and keep that nice and well-watered.
I don't really feel that there's a huge need to mulch the entire patch,
but I do think mulching the inside of that basin with some straw or some micro
bark or something like that can really help keep these well-watered,
especially early on in their life.
They need a ton of water to throw out all these vines, all of these leaves,
to generate enough energy to create those big honking monsters back there.
Mistake number four.
What if you actually do get some watermelon fruit but they are small and tiny
like these? Well, these ones are actually a small variety. But in your case,
it might be that you're letting too many fruit per vine or per plant.
Generally speaking,
you're going to want to let maybe two fruit per plant - up to four,
if they're a smaller variety. So for this one here,
I can let four go cause they are about, I mean honestly,
they might be just an inch more in diameter than that size at their final size.
That's totally fine. For the one that you saw earlier in the video,
two per plant on that one, maximum.
And another thing that you might be doing is overcrowding your actual planting.
So watermelon is a plant that you don't plant one per X feet.
You usually plant them in a mound, like I said, two, three, maybe four.
I would say two or three is a good rule of thumb.
And then you let them all grow right next to each other.
And then you space them out roughly four to six feet per mound.
So it's a per mound type of planting. But a lot of people will plant 5, 6,
7 and then just let them all grow per mound and they're kind of competing with
each other and crowding themselves out. Mistake number five,
what happens if you're not even getting any flower and fruit formation in the
first place? There's three sort of ways that you can go wrong here. First one,
which is really common for a beginner gardener, is just planting out of season.
So, watermelons are a quintessential summer crop.
They want a long season with a really high amount of sun,
eight plus hours of sun per day. So, quintessential summer crop,
don't think you can kind of squeeze them by in a shoulder season.
Probably not gonna work out too well for you.
Another thing is if the temperatures are too low. Above 70 degrees Fahrenheit,
ideally even sometimes in the eighties and low nineties,
is actually okay for watermelon. So they can do completely fine there too.
Second reason is if it's a temperature issue. So above 70 degrees Fahrenheit,
that's what they really prefer. They want to get a little toasty.
Even up above 80 degrees Fahrenheit is totally fine for them.
The third and final reason you might not be getting fruit is because you're
fertilizing in an incorrect manner. Specifically,
if you're pumping too much nitrogen into the soil.
They do need a lot of nitrogen early on when they're throwing out all this
growth that you see sprawling around here. But I mean, look at this honker.
Look at Eric here.
Eric needs a lot of other nutrients that are more conducive to flowering and
fruiting, like phosphorus and potassium.
And so if you are doing some fertilizing,
I would definitely dial your nitrogen back as soon as you start to see,
or as soon as you start to know, that fruiting and flowering is upon you.
Mistake number six, the one you've probably been waiting for.
How do you know when your delicious, voluptuous,
juicy succulent watermelon is actually ready to harvest?
And you don't harvest it too early. You don't harvest it too late.
I'm going to show you three different ways to know. The first one is a classic.
You want to give it a thump, a little thump test.
This is good if you're in a grocery. So let's do it right now.
Has a bit of a hollow sound. The thump test, one way to know.
The second way to know is to look at the difference between the stripes.
Now this is a different style of watermelon, different cultivar.
The one you see over here is closer to a more classic look.
When you see it really shiny, then that's a good sign it's not ripe yet.
When you see it dull and the difference between these tones from dark to light
starts to get a little bit more mellow, then it's a good indicator.
Another way to know is to check what's called the field spot.
So the watermelon is just sitting like this until you decide to move it.
And so it's going to develop a different color on the bottom of it, like this.
And so when this starts to turn a little bit more yellow and cream,
it's kind of there right now, that's how you know it's ripe. If it wasn't ripe,
this would be more of a pure white color. Here's a fourth bonus tip.
Take a look at this watermelon.
So you've got the stem that's connecting to the fruit.
You have this little spoon leaf right here, which is all dried up.
And then you have this tendril right here next to it that is kind of spiraled
and wonky.
When this starts to go full brown that's how you know it's absolutely ripe.
So let's go ahead and do the moment of truth. The magical cut. Okay,
the moment of truth is here. Did I make a mistake on this watermelon?
Or am I living the dream of dreams.
By growing my very first massive watermelon?
Probably not the best place to cut this, but I don't really care. Let's go in.
Ooh.
Oh, I'm seeing something that I like, guys. I'm seeing something I really.
Like. Hold on. Are you ready? Are you ready?
Oh, yes! Look at that!
Okay. We gotta taste test it. We gotta taste test it.
Okay.
Here we go. Look at the color.
Ooh. Yes! All right. Sweetness.
Oh, it's field warm.
That's so good. That's actually.
And when you grow it yourself, you know, you know.
Cultivate that Like button for delicious, juicy, sweet watermelon.
I'm going to do a full guide at some point in the future.
Right now I'm going to eat this entire thing and then eat that entire thing.
And then live my best life. So I'm going to leave doing that.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Oh, I just ate a seed.
Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
Mmmmmmm.