Last year I let my grass grow high. When I mowed it I found a few well established volunteer watermelons near my burn pile. I did nothing to them and they grew me 3 large delicious watermelons. It was an insult on my previous attempts at growing watermelons which had been complete failures.

growing up in rural SC where the dirt was fertile me and my dad would plant watermelon+cantelope in the ground every year and had good results without ever fertilizing them. then when I moved out of state and bought a house in a less fertile suburban area, I tried the same and got absolutely wrecked. 6 plants and maybe got 2 small watermelons. I had always just assumed that you could just stick anything in the tilled ground and it would come up fine. Makes you realize why people fought all those wars over fertile land.

Just planted some seeds a couple of weeks ago without any knowledge and guidance, but the watermelon gods are listening and all my favorite gardening channels are uploading watermelon videos.

pruning:....When I started growing watermelons I started with the crimson sweet..These were like 25 -30 lb melons..first time I had vines growing all over the place and in my neighbors yard. They climbed everywhere....The next year I started pruning them and had bigger melons..These are a great variety, but too big for the average fridge.This year I'm growing the sugar babies to cut down refer space...Good luck to everyone that loves watermelons.

Thank you so much for this video! its perfectly timed, and this helped me realize that I've been under fertilizing my melons!!! may you have a blessed harvest and have many melons!

You are by far the most knowledgeable gardening gnome on the internet. Very informative video.

This was the best damn video I ever seen on gardening. U hit on every question I had. No need to even watch any other vids. Thank u

I love how you tie in the ecology of the plants in how they should be planted I wish more people thought like that

So glad I found your channel. Your tips are perfect for me I live in Wilmington, I am now 74 and growing postage stamp gardens and container gardening. Thank you !

I’ve had good success growing but harvesting at the perfect time is a struggle. SE TX a hot as fire. 26 melons 5 picked at the right time! Some too early some too late. Learning! TY for your wisdom! Blessings!

Thanks,Anthony your video came out just in time.Iam trying watermelon for the second time.My first time was a miserable failure.

Wow! I have only recently found your channel and I am learning so much!! I am just getting ready to start a garden and have so much to learn still❤

If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching!🍉TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 Intro To Watermelon Growing 0:56 Tip #1: Watermelon Variety Selection 2:23 Tip #2: Minimize Plant Stress 5:45 Tip #3: Fertilizing Watermelons 11:26 How To Transplant Watermelon Plants 15:30 Tip #4: Eliminating Pests 18:12 Tip #5: Mulching Watermelon Plants 21:54 Adventures With Dale

Dang, I’m glad I found your channel because I’m in Wilmington too and attempting to grow my first garden. 🙃

I mulch around my melons . Central Arkansas here . I grow jubilee melons use bone Mill and tomato tone when planting and trible 13 . Keep watered

According to Scott brand mulch theirs is from forest trees only no pallets or harmful wood. Right now it’s on sale at Lowe’s for $2 and a little more at Walmart. I’m planning on using it in my gardening.

Thank you so much! I just set out my watermelon plants.

Had great success with sweet mountain yellow watermelon last year. This year I expanded the growing area and planted 3 watermelon varieties: sweet mountain yellow, black diamond , and orange Krush. Plus, 3 smaller melons: tam dew, model melon and Hales best cantaloupe. Thanks for the 5 growing tips. Wishing you large juicy sweet melons this year.

Here in Kansas at least my area ,our soil is very dark and fertile . However I still fertilize heavily and the melons seem to take whatever I throw at them. I have never layed down weed barrier to grow the vines on , that is untill I watched this video a month or so ago. It has for sure made a difference in pest control as well as making it easier to direct my vines. They are spread out 12 or more feet and look great...thanks for the tip...one more thing . I made little 3'x3' frames with 50% shade cloth and covered the areas I set the plants in and it really has made a noticeable difference.

Just planted my first try at Sugar Baby in 10 gallon grow-bags, so thank you for this video. I know it's going to be like work to keep them watered and now that they're planted in full sun, I need to figure out how to offer the roots some shade. It made me smile to see a dirty 5 fingers at the end of the video. I'm sure I'm not the only one that can relate. Here's hoping our future holds nice juicy melons!

I'm growing melons this season. What a great video with plenty of hints,& tips on how to get the best from your melon plants. Thanks for sharing and take care 😊

WOW, Best tips EVER for growing watermelons. Just great! Thanks a lot

Thanks for the tips I'm in a watermelon growing challenge so I will be using your tips. I do have to figure out how to give some shade for the days we hit 90's here in SC. Thanks again! Happy Gardening! 💚🌱

Thanks. I love Sugar Baby personal watermelons. They seem to work well in our short Phoenix area growing seasons. It often gets too hot during July and August so they fry. You always have to figure out the right amount of shade cloth. And the seeds won't germinate too early in the season. I love your idea of planting them under the shade of trees.

I had a lot of success last year growing them for the first time in grow bags. Definitely learning what i could have done better.

I love any of your videos with Crystal❤️❤️❤️❤️ Great to see how you guys eat a bit differently. Best wishes on the summer garden!

Great tips as always buddy. Look at that steak dinner!! Wow! Dale is living the life. Love it

Thanks for the tips! I hope my wife will grow some nice watermelons now.

Great video as always👍 My favorite watermelon is jubilee, very sweet, crisp and large.

Thank you Brother Anthony for reminding us and teaching us all 😊❤

Good solid education. Thank you.🎉🎉

Love love loved all your wisdom....my first time growing watermelon july 2024 and feel overwhelmed as to how with having groundhogs 🤦🏽‍♀️... Thanks so much ill be purchasing fertilizer....

I like to jump into new things head on. This is my first year having a garden. I decided to make the best out of my current space situation and planted 5 plants within a 3x3 raised bed. Using miracle gro shake and feed at the start I have some melons that are bigger than footballs after about 3 months from planting seeds

I'm trying sugar baby watermelon for a second year. Last year we lost them all to a critter that climbed over my fence. This time I'm trying to grow them up a trellis at my own home instead of my hain garden at moms. Praying hard that I get some this year lol

If you don’t want to watch the entire video, here is the summary: First tip, start from small watermelon and move up from there. Second tip, put your watermelon bed inside the shade. Let the weeds slowly creep out of the shade, but keep the roots themselves inside the shade. Tip #3: Fertilize you watermelon, and feed them a lot. There are two parts. His first part involves using All Purpose Fertilizer, Bone-Meal, and Lobster/Crab mix (third one is not required but recommended). The second part is water fertilizing, which involves first using Alaskan Fish Water, then Jack’s All Purpose 20-20-20 Water. Fertilize these plants twice a month. Then each plant needs around 2 sq ft of space per each watermelon. Use two tablespoons of fertilizer per each plant and apply twice a month. If you use the Jacks Water, use 1 tbsp per gallon. Tip #4: Grow your plants on top of a weed barrier. This keeps bugs away to at will kill your watermelon. Tip #5: Mulch your watermelon only after your watermelon is settled into its planting bed. Use any NATURAL mulch, it is best for your plant. Some counties offer free mulch. Please like this comment🙏🙏🙏

I have been growing sugar babies the past few years. They grow easy and don't take much room. Hard to believe the number of seeds in one of those small watermelons. But they taste great. Plus I have tons of seeds for the next year

I've been following your channel for 2 years. It's great that you tell us where you are growing from and your conditions. A lot of growers on KZfaq don't do that. You're testing and fighting nature with alternate solutions is exceptional! I'm growing my first dwarf and determinate tomatoes this season because like you I live south in Atlanta ga. Started indoors mid-march and planting a second round in the next two weeks. The beit alpha cucumbers or a game changer! Keep up the great work I will always watch

Those wire panels might benefit the vines not blowing around on the slick black ground cover. A friend planted his melons on the weed mat and high winds would easily blow them in a bunch so i would leave one or two if you ever find a place to use the wire panels. Thanks for your videos really appreciate your knowledge.Crimson Sweet variety here in Missouri.

Thank You the weed barrier suggested is great I already put it down & the watermelon is growing great only thing I have to put a cover over the main area the sun is burning it I do use bone meal-2wk, fish emulsions- 1wk blood meal -2wk I do plan on put watermelon holders cause the weed barrier is Hot!!😋

Thank you. I guess I’ll be fertilizing my watermelons more😁

This is an incredibly well done video. Excellent work Sir! 👊🏻🌻👊🏻

Great tips, and I love seeing Dale!

Awesome video, greetings from south Florida.

Grew up on farm and my pop pop used 10-10-10 but I’m not sure if anything else was used. Im here learning all I can. Thank you for suggestions and advice.

In rural areas there are so many places to buy fertilizer by the bag that you don't need to pay high walmart prices on a tiny bag. They sell it in any NPK you ask for and mix it on the spot. Though you need to buy at least 50 pounds at a time. Their typical ag customers buy like 40,000 pounds at a time though.

Thank you for sharing your experiences it is so very helpful.

i really admire the layout of your garden, so neat, and thank you so much for sharing in detail

I’ll be laying out weed barrier Fabric tomorrow and bumping up the fertilizer! Thanks! Mine are around 4’ long at this point in time!

I've seen another interesting way of dealing with the sprawling vines which is to train them up a sturdy trellis, not a tall one and then have a top to the trellis so the vines crawl over a flat surface of trellis, although an arch would work fine too, and then when the fruiting starts, direct the fruit to hang below the trellis and as they get big enough, support each fruit with a netting. I KNOW this has to help with SOME pests and disease but it's not going to protect against everything. This method also provides shade for the base of the plants and root system so that seems to be a common theme in hotter areas, which is where this was done. Hey good video, once again I'm getting stuff stuck into the brain to think about when I decide to grow watermelon. I'm more of a squash guy, though I need ones that can grow in more tropical areas.

Thanks for the tips, I’ll be trying them this year.

Great tips! Thanks for sharing. 😊

Thank you for the helpful info on the watermelon. I made my watermelon patch on mounds this year and now I am going to put them in a raised bed and shade them. I have the bone meal and plant tone but use Land and Sea compost by Espoma. I hope this year they don't get too hot. ❤

I set up my tomato garden bed using those cage trellis panels you have. I made an A shape out of them using 1 panel on each side and wire tying them in the middle.

Great vid! I just soaked some sugar baby seeds and planted in big pots in my greenhouse. Gonna give it a go here in the high Rockies! My GH really warms up and Im thinking it will heat the pots n soil and make this elusive fruit happen this year!

Yummy watermelons Dale

Thank you.

Great video 👍🏽

This will be my 2nd summer attempting watermelons 🤞🏻I'll be trying most of your steps. I've procured jacks and alaska here in Canada. Will you be doing a video on pruning? To or not to snip the ends, how many fruit per plant etc. Also, tips if we have to grow vertically? Thanks

Have you tried the morbloom from Alaska? It is 0-10-10. I use the fish fertilizer and the morbloom together in a water can all the time for pretty much everything.

I’ve been using fish emulsion for a few years now, and for some reason, I’ve been using 1 tablespoon per gallon of water, or 2 tablespoons for my 2-gallon watering can. I was wondering why you were using 2-3 tablespoons per gallon, so I decided to look at the label on the bottle. Sure enough, it says 2 tablespoons per gallon. I haven’t had any problems with under-fertilizing, so it never occurred to me that I wasn’t using the recommended amount of fish emulsion.

watched then re-watched. going to buy the fabric cloth your link and fertilizer with tomato from big box store today. happy 😀

Thank you! I love watermelon 🍉

Ive marked my 📅 to fertilize!! Just planted 3 vines today in community garden in Ohio. I planted them in a mound. Not sure why. Less drowning of roots? It poured rain this evening so maybe it was a good idea. I started them in the house a couple months ago and managed to keep a few alive. No idea what variety as I had a wash out from a storm and everything was all over and not sure which recovered. So, hopefully I'll find out and they're delicious!

In Michigan, I just couldn't grow a Melon to save my life until Bi tried small varieties like Minnesota Midget, Kajari, and Horned Melon. Complete game changers!

Very complete instructions and great video.Watermelon to tuff to grow in Boston, but I've had great success with musk melon.

Thank you 👵🏻👩‍🌾❣️

Growing Grafted watermelons this year first time ever. They should be way more resistant to illnesses and with bigger yields. Wish me luck

Sounds great would this work for cantaloupe,and other vegetables as well I mean your fertilizer

I plant mine under my grape arbor, works fine for me

This video came out just in time, i live in Phoenix and ive been working on half an acre of open desert to start a micro farm i had just planted my watermelon plant in my raised bed under full unobstructed sunlight however i did add a nice layer of mini flake to the bed but now after watching this video im thinking i probably need a shade cloth too 😅

I was clearing off the top layer of grass and just leaving dirt so i can mulch it and get rid of weeds around my raised beds... Was looking the other day... Coming through the mulch are about 13 volunteer Watermelons 🤣

I planted 4 bedding watermelon plants this year. Variety is Crimson Sweet. They have grown far beyond my expectations. I have some long vines that probably need pruning, with about 10 melons growing. The largest probably weighs a pound and is about 6" long. However, I've noticed a few are misshapen. On a few few, one side is short than the other. We have gotten a lot of rain here in South Mississippi. They are planted in full sun. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Perfect timing. I just built an A frame trellis and I was wondering what could go on the backside that may get some shade from the front. I am trying to fit in lots of plants in a small backyard. I’m growing sugar baby and a Minnesota midget cantaloupe, plus other squash and zucchini. All in grow bags.

Anyone in a colder area try black tail mountain watermelons. They don't mind cool night time temperatures and will still ripen at 50 degrees. And they are very vigorous. Haven't had any problems since i started growing them. Zone 7 They don't always like to be transplanted if the roots are really overgrown. So use a bigger container for them or plant out before roots get too big

Thank you for the tips sir! Great video

Thank you so much! Very informative and helpful ❤

I planted mine this year in spot, I burned a huge brush pile. After that, I made three large piles of horse manure. My soil is very sandy. I spread the manure and tilled in February. I checked the long term weather and it looked like we were past out last freeze here in SE Texas. This was going to be my first attempt at growing a watermelon! I hilled up the three mounds of soil that was dominated by horse manure. Before May 1st I had a variety of of watermelon seedlings in the ground. I really think I had them in the ground too early, they struggled to do much. So I kind of forgot about them. The vine were roughly 20 feet long when I noticed the first watermelon. I have no clue what kind it was but by all indications it was ready the middle of June. By far the best watermelon I have ever had! I have eaten the melons from Hempstead Texas and they are awesome, but this melon topped them! So I saved seeds from it. I think it came from HEB because I didn't have a seed packet that looked like this watermelon. Once I started nursing this melon, I started finding our melons on the vines, which took over a 20'x20' area. Suger Babies, Hempstead (saved seeds from the year before) and another verity of small personal watermelon that looks similar to the "UFO" watermelon that was so delicious. Made a big mistake trying to prune vines that had left the fenced are of the garden. There a ton of vines that had left the garden area. So I didn't run over them with the mower. But once I watched a video about pruning I decided to prune everything outside the fence! Turned out my three biggest Hempstead watermelons had left the garden area but runners had grown back inside the fence! I've noticed that the vines have hairs like a tomato and anywhere a leaf is there are roots if the plant is touching the soil. So with the two larger watermelons I dug a 2' long trench and laid the vines in the bottom with three or so leaves just before the melon. I covered that with chicken manure and watered it in heavy. The tropical weather that hit Texas this week watered the patch job for the last three days. Looks like it's going to work on the smaller of the two. The leaves look like they are still alive. The bigger melon the leaves have died but the vine is still a good color. So as long as the vine looks of, it will stay. If the vines starts to dry up, it will be chicken food! Sorry for the long post!

I live near a de-lmonte melon farm that's full sun, but they cover their mounds in white plastic. We have hot summers as well but they seem to grow freely

Hi, new gardener here. You used 5-3-3 fertilizer. I have 12-5-7 fertilizer. Can I just use half as much? And thank you so much for the wealth of information. You have no idea how much you've helped me. I'm in the piedmont of NC, so I experience a lot of the same things you do.

The recommendations you give always have the perfect level of detail and reasoning, it's so easy to understand. I definitely have not been fertilizing my melons enough. Is there a reason why you skipped the bone meal on the roots when transplanting?

Good

Have you tried a fertilizer doser ? I have one that injects at a 4% rate and is based on flow alone. Hooked it up to my hose and can deep water or lightly spray the plant depending on the nozzle. The fertilizer injectors I have used in the past ,EZ Flo, suck if you use organic fertilizers as the fertilizer just sinks and never empty the tank of the fertilize unless you have a way to keep the fertilizer suspended, which defeats their purpose.

I'd say peg the cattle wire where it is. U say it don't need no trellis but I'd say give it some to vine around which cud stabilise against the wind more.

Can you please do a similar video for different squash plants such as zucchini, acorn, pumpkins? 😊 This is very helpful, and it seems like a lot of this applies to the pumpkin squash I’m “attempting” to grow.

I use foxfarm grow big, big blossom and tiger blossom. Also there 2 step cultivation nation. Not sure if it's organic or not. I hear different things. Either way it's amazing

I use More Bloom with my Fish Fertilizer for a water saluable.

For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 ❤

What’s growing on!! Lol love your channel. Thank you for all the helpful tips and tricks. I am in Philadelphia. The weather here just started consistently warming up and I wanted to start growing watermelons in a container. I have some mushroom organic fertilizer and liquid kelp plant food would that be sufficient for the watermelons? Again love love love your channel! Thank you so much.☀️🙌🏼💜💜

The thing with landscape fabric it doesn’t last long uncovered here in Texas. The sun will dry rot the fabric in a month or 2. I put compost mulch over mine it helps create a good environment for earth worms and help my soil.

Amazing tips, love it

Awesome video! I've never managed to successfully grow watermelon here in Alaska, with our cooler climate and short season. 😭 I'm hoping maybe this year I'll pull it off, if I try a very early, small variety.

On commercial watermelon farms they grow the plants as seedlings planted into a large plastic sheet using a machine that automatically cuts holes and plants the seedlings through the plastic. They use a machine that unrolls the plastic over a raised row bed and has two discs on the sides to secure the plastic edges in the soil. The planting machine looks like a big roller that has little shoves that the seedling is inserted into that when it runs over the plastic pierces through and the shovels open up and the seedling falls out. So spacing and depth and the zig zag pattern is done by just the placement of the spades on the roller. But even commercial farms know that plastic barrier is better than letting the vines sprawl in the grass

Can I keep the roots cool by putting straw on top of the soil

Dale is a good boy! He deserves a cookie for dessert.

Very interesting. As always I enjoyed your videos and learned from them. Have you tried other type of melon in your garden, like honeydew or cantaloupe? Do they require special care as the watermelon?

Great video

Do you use the same container soil mix and feeding for smaller and other types of melons like kajari, canteloupe, and honeydew?

I do use MG

I planted some young watermelon plants and something ate the plants. Do you know what it could be and what can I do to prevent it? I have to replant them again.

Great job 👍