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central Missouri

Marty Schnicker sent me some giant watermelon seeds from his 168 along with his pumpkin seeds so I'm going to give giant watermelon a try this year. Here are some questions I've been wondering about. I've found very little info on the net other than the Melon Man's website.

Do you follow the same foliar fert. program as with giant pumpkins? Same insecticides and fungicides?

Do they send out vines in all directions or do they run in a christmas tree pattern?

Do the secondary vines develope roots?

I read they like a pH of 6.0. Seems kinda low?

Thanks, Mark

4/19/2006 1:47:00 PM

depends depends depends
pumpkins send vines in all direction and only christmas tree if pruned you don't want prune watermelons
yes
6.4-6.5 and not 6.
try yahoo giant watermelon group.
Also try this new york times article "A MONSTER WATERMELON.; THE REMARKABLE PATCH WHICH A GEORGIA FARMER IS CULTIVATING."
Aug 28, 1882. pg. 5,

4/20/2006 6:14:53 AM

Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

Mark

Last year we grew a 207.6# watermelon in Canada. Our PH level was high at 7.2. I would suggest you try to get your PH at about the 6.5 range. We pruned our plants, but grew them not in a Christmas Tree pattern, but more like an octopus. The main was grown out 8' & was then mistakenly terminated. This allowed for other vines to grow out from the stump. The watermelon was grown on one of these secondary mains. We allowed them to grow out to the edge of the plot (20 x 10) before terminating them, but allowed two of them to grow all season. We trimmed the secondaries on all of the secondary mains when they reached the edge of the growing plot & allowed the terirary vines grow out until they filled in the empty areas & then were trimmed & buried. We did keep some vines growing the whole season. We fertilized mostly on the same schedule as the pumpkins with fish/seaweed, but used mostly 20-20-20 every 2 weeks right up till the last 2 weeks of the season. The plant will root at the leaf nodes, but if you bury them like a pumpkin vine, the plant will likely die of some disease. The roots are very fine at the leaf nodes. We put dirt on only every 5th or 6th leaf nod to try to keep the vine running along the ground. This will allow the plant to drop roots down from some of the other leaf nodes that aren't buried. We used the same pesticides & fungicides for them as we use on the pumpkins. I hope this helps everyone out. This is the only one way of doing it & I'm sure others have a different method, but we've had some success growing them this way. Check out the full article on the GVGO's website at:

http://www.gvgo.ca/articles/article_huntjane01.html

Good luck.

Phil

4/20/2006 7:45:41 AM

central Missouri

Thanks!

4/21/2006 1:09:54 AM