how's it going everyone so today I'm gonna be planting some watermelons so
I've never really tried growing these before but I've always wanted to and so
I'm in the right along the back fence here in a yard in Adelaide and I've been
digging up some old areas just as some more like garden beds as my grandparents
said yeah sure just go for it and so there was a whole heap of weeds
and stuff along here but I'm just trying to use all this space to grow some more
produce so in one of the corners I'm gonna be trying growing watermelons now
I'm trying the variety sugar baby just because this one isn't as much of a
rambler as there are other plants along here and as I am growing it near some
new beds that I've made I don't want it to take over the garden so I'm going to
be drying the variety sugar baby which is also a smaller watermelon but it's
supposed to be very nice and sweet so I'll pretty much be showing you guys
how I prepared the soil what I've added to it and then also I'll be taking into
planting and just how to just how I'm gonna be looking after it a bit in the
next couple of weeks while it's getting established okay so these are the two
watermelons that I've got so as I said they're both of sugar baby variety and
this one is doing much better both play at the same time of some reason this is
just doing better and this is the spot that I've chosen to grow them in so this
is in a corner that is more east northeast facing so it does get most of
the day Sun but also because it's in the corner here in the fence in this metal
fence it is a bit of a heat sink as well so it will get it'll be a lot warmer
than it is say in the middle of the garden which these watermelons will love
so all I did to prepare this was really dig up the ground I got the pitchfork in
here and it was a fairly clay but it was actually reasonably welds well
structured clay so I just dug that over a lot and then got in a fair bit of the
compost he just besides me added about a wheelbarrow load in for this small area
and just loosely dug that through the soil then it also got
blood and bone and mixed in quite a few generous handfuls of that just slightly
into the top of the soil and then covered it with some of this peace straw
mulch now the good thing is about that compost is that it is absolutely loaded
with compost Williams it is amazing I'm so hopefully they've been working the
soil over the past week so I prepared this about a week ago I just wanted to
let all the microorganisms and the worms and stuff were kiss all over let it
settle in a bit before I plant these watermelons so now I'll get started into
planting the watermelons okay so now for planting the watermelon so all I'm going
to be doing for that is plain to them about 50 centimetres 50 to 60
centimetres or so which is I think about a foot and a half to 2 feet apart which
will pretty much be on each side of this little patch this just allows enough
space for them to grow without too much competition this soil is very fertile
now that I've added the compost and blood and bone and other things so it
should be very nice and fertile and it's well draining but it'll hold on to a lot
of water which obviously water mounds will like so make sure that pull away a
lot of the mulch because I don't want the mulch coming up around the stems of
the watermelon and causing them to rot so now I'm just gonna get these
watermelons look at that that's a nice root system right there now you do have
to be careful and take into consideration when replanting
watermelons and other cucurbits because they don't really like it so try to be
gentle as gentle as you can and plant them at the same depth that they were in
the pot now I'm going to be forming a little well around each of them and I'll
be doing the exact same thing you just found a couple of compost worms in there
which is nice now the reason why I like to form a bit of a basin especially for
watermelons is because this then holds water it's like a little Bowl where the
water can sit go straight to the roots of the watermelons and obviously when
they start really growing and producing flowers and fruit you want to have
something like this just so they can hold a lot of water
because obviously watermelons as the name implies they need a lot of water
okay so now I've just got some eggshells here and I'm gonna be using these just
to protect the water mounds because things like slugs and snails will
absolutely love them so shows form a nice thick barrier around each
watermelon plant now I'm gonna make sure I give these guys a really good drink
just to settle them make sure they get some water around their roots now they
were planted so in terms of maintaining the watermelons the first thing one of
the biggest ones is definitely what I mentioned before keeping slugs and
snails and other pests away from them so I'm gonna be using eggshells but if need
be I'll also probably be making like a chili and soap garlic spray as well just
to come around and spray them if needed because for some reason and I don't
exactly know why but um cucurbit so that's like the watermelons cucumbers
pumpkins aki-nee's their foliage especially when it's young slugs and
snails absolutely love the roof favorite and so especially as they're getting
established these young watermelons are going to be probably targeted by them so
I'm gonna be keeping a watch out for that so that's one way of maintaining it
another is just make sure that the water is up as the name implies which I've
already mentioned it is called water melon and they do really like a lot of
water but obviously it'll be especially at fruiting flowering fruiting and
they're really the third thing I'm gonna be actually two more things I need a
watch is for nutrition because watermelons are very very hungry feeders
so they like a lot of nutrients and like I said before I added in a whole heap of
compost and blood bar and that should sustain them but also I might be giving
them some foliar not follow the thief but a liquid feed of probably like see
so I can see we concentrated something like that as well just to keep them
topped up with some nutrition get them some extra
and nutrient elements as well for for them to grow healthy and strongly and
then lastly the last thing under you do to maintain them is keep them contained
so watermelons is all pretty much more cucurbits they are spread as they like
to really spread out through the garden so what I need to watch for you just
make sure that they stay contained because I don't want them going in
amongst the other veggies so in that corner it's actually pretty much fenced
off between the through the compost bin and there is actually a little fence
it's probably four square meters or so I'll pretty much be keeping that
contained in that and just wrapping around the vines or pinching out the
shoots to encourage more of the lateral growth which gross fruit and therefore i
sorry grows the flowers and therefore more fruit so those are really the main
four things that I'm going to be watching for the one-minute and keeping
them maintained so that's it for the watermelon so I'll pretty much leave the
video right there but first I do have to thank a very special group of people and
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