How to Grow Watermelon - HUGE Harvest l Part 1 of 2

what a days video is sponsored by black gold compost company I want to thank the folks over back gold for the kind generous donation of 18 pallets of black cow cow manure this has really got me in Nancy off to a really good start in our our garden this year we can't thank you enough and we've been using this product I've been personally using this since 1980 and it's been a great product for me I highly recommend it thank you for sponsoring our channel well I don't think there's anything to assess summer any better than watermelon we'll be right back after the break [Music] well welcome back friends man I tell you I don't know anybody that don't like a good old watermelon in the summertime so refreshing and tasty and nothing like a good old seed spitting contest but anyway today we're going to grow two different kinds of watermelon I wanted to share that with you because this is a big step for us here we finally got our own watermelon patch and I've been looking forward to growing watermelon for a long time we really love watermelon it's very healthy for you and refreshing and we're also gonna grow extra for our chickens because when it gets really hot down here you can give them this watermelon and it revolves them it refreshes them and it's got everything they need to get the strength back so we're gonna give them some watermelon too so for the chickens I'm gonna be planting this this variety right here is called a Georgia rattlesnake this is a variety that has the seeds in it so this is the kind of one if you want to have a speed a seed spitting contest but what we do what we're gonna do with these is we're gonna grow a whole bunch of these and we'll get them nice and cold and we'll cut the heart out of them so we can have that you know as a snack and then all the rest of the watermelon is full of all the seeds and everything we'll give that to the chickens and let them have some a treat out of that so we both get to eat this one this is called the georgia rattlesnake I got these seeds that the Eden Brothers online Eden Brothers so check them out if you want to get some of these types of watermelon seeds for your garden this year and we'll go into how these things grow pretty soon so stick with me on this now the next thing is I'm going to be growing as a triploid hybrid triploid watermelon in other words it's a seedless watermelon and these aren't very and nowhere near as big as the rattlesnakes I mean they they get some big old humongous you know two armed watermelons these are much smaller than you know like this this these are the kind of common we see in the grocery store everybody likes seedless watermelon that's really what you're getting a triploid now this one's called farmer's wonderful I got this one at Johnny seed calm so if you want to get some of these C's check them out one thing about these these hybrids you know they have they have to have a pollinator to pollinate oh you're not going to get any watermelons so when you order these be sure to order the pollinator to go with them and I got these at Johnny seed as well and this is called a pollinator ace pollinator ace so I like to have these pollinators at least one for every three of the seedless I have three plants and one pollinator at least a minimum more if you can get them so that that's what I'm going to be doing so part of our watermelon bed is going to be seedless and the other part of the watermelon bed it's going to be the ones with the seeds so let's get these things started I'm going to start off these with seeds in the seed starting trace and I'm going to save some of these rattlesnakes on my plant direct so some of the seeds over into a watermelon bed but I'm going to have a little bit of both I'm gonna have it starters and I'm also going to do direct so some so let me get this I got the trays ready let me pre-moistened these a little bit and get these seeds in here and we'll get them over in the grow rack and get these things germinating so we can get them in the ground let's get started start off with somebody's pollinators I'm just going to put one seed per cell well no there we go got us some watermelon off and running got I got two trays of the seedless watermelon and two trays of the rattlesnake watermelon the ones with the seeds and I've also got one tray of the pollinators so I think we got enough to get us going I've just got to give this some time and this warm Sun to get these things germinating you keep in mind when you want to grow watermelon that these are these watermelon like hot weather they love it so don't try to plant your seeds too early here is today's March the 15th here in Florida and I'm already 88 89 degrees during the day so it's okay for me to plant early in March but folks that live a little further north than Florida you need to wait until those temperatures get on up you want that soil to be nice and warm before you try to grow watermelon they just won't make it so anyway keep that in mind we'll be back in the days ahead we'll watch these germinate and I save back some of the rattlesnake watermelon to direct so I say back some of the sea so I can direct so when we get over to the watermelon pasture we'll be planting some of these plants with some direct sow seeds in there with us so we'll be doing a little both so we're excited I can't wait to get it going and we'll be back in the days ahead and watch this progression all summer got to be patient because they take a long time to grow so we'll be back soon well our watermelon seeds have already germinated and pumped up and it's only been five days very good so we'll keep track of the progress of these over the next couple of weeks let these things get on up there's no true leaves yet it's all still Connellan leaves but they're doing really good so we'll be back in a couple of weeks and we'll take a look at the progress and see how they're doing see you then well the watermelon are doing fantastic I pulled them out of the grow rack over there and I've got them out here on the hardened table for the last three days and they're just about ready I think I'm gonna give them one more day these right here are the pollinators they're doing great and right here is the seedless take a kind of a close-up look at the seedless watermelon you notice how they're a little bit smaller but they're getting there they've got true leaves and and they're just smaller by Nature so we'll be getting those ready and over here are the rattlesnake the Georgia rattlesnake these are the ones with the seeds remember and you can see there are much larger plants than the seedless watermelon so they're off and running they're ready to go so we'll be back in the next couple of days we'll get the the watermelon patches already ready to go I've already got that tilled in and ready and we'll me an answer you're good out here together get to them I have to have some help with all these things so we'll be back in a couple of days and we'll get these things in the ground see you then well good morning it's time to get started on installing our watermelon plants and I think you'll remember last year when we released the video on how to prepare the watermelon patch you know we we talked about how much area every single one of these little Hills of watermelon are gonna need they're going to need 25 square feet per plant that's critical and we talked about it's going to definitely need irrigation because they like water so today we're going to go out and we're going to put in the the plants and I want them to walk through you know what we're going to be doing out there with you and this is the little diagram I got for how to install them first of all of course we're going to need the 25 square feet of area for each hill that I make and that's at a minimum of 5 feet by 5 feet so keep that in mind whenever you're setting up your watermelon patch don't crowd them up they got to have room to run them bynes want to run another thing is you want to wait until it's sixty to seventy degrees at night because you can push their plants out there and you have a little cool snap if it goes down into upper 40s or so you could very well lose your watermelon so be patient and wait for that warm temperature to get here at night so when you put them out there you'll have peace of mind and those things will just thrive they love hot weather they do not like it cold your area that you're gonna plant in it needs to have loose soil because they're deep-rooted plants so I deep tilled my garden and I'm gonna do some more down here when we talk about the diagram to make sure that that area where I'm planting is nice and soft so those roots can run just as deep as they want something else to keep in mind the watermelon plants are heavy feeders they love nitrogen they need a lot of nitrogen so I'm going to put blood meal in every hole that's a good source of organic nitrogen they're heavy they need heavy watering so it's very critical that you have irrigation unless you're just doing one or two plants you know one or two hills and you probably do it by hand with a hose but if you're doing several Hills like we're doing you're gonna have to have irrigation you'll never be able to keep up with the watering requirements it's also a good idea to add some peat into the hole when you're doing this to help a little bit on the water retention to keep it moist because like I said they're they like a lot of water so it's a good idea to add a little bit of peat in there in the hole another thing to keep in mind on your watering that these these vines are prone to to the point powdery mildew just like cucumbers so you want to be sure to water only in the morning so that it has all day to dry off and evaporate and it doesn't sit well overnight so don't wet don't water these in the afternoon you want to water on first thing in the morning so it has all day to dry out be patient on your watermelon because they're gonna need a hundred to 125 days to harvest and even then you still may want to give us some more time and we'll go we'll walk walk through that process on part 2 of this video we'll talk about when to harvest some and how to tell when it's ready now you want to make sure that your watermelons are getting full Sun they'd like lots of heat just as much Sun as you can get them all day you want to mount your in distillation and if you're going to be doing it by direct so we'll talk about that in a minute but you want to mound them and make a hill and you're going to direct direct so about 8 seeds per hill about 1 inch deep and then after they get going you'll fill them down to about 3 let's let's assume up right here I want to take a closer look at this diagram with you okay there we are a little closer view here now when you get ready to do your Hills what I'm talking about a hill I'm talking about i'm basically a crater what I'm gonna do is I'm going to dig a hole about 24 inches in diameter and about 18 inches deep I'm gonna take the soil that comes out of that hole and I'm gonna make a berm right around the hole circumference the whole diameter of this hole that I dig and I'm gonna make it about six inches high the reason I want to burn that up is I want to be able to capture in irrigation that's coming in this way or or rain fall I want it to be captured in here like a like a basin which will bring that water right on down to the bottom of that root system just because they just love the water so make sure that you berm up your hole next thing you want to do after you get your hole dug is I'm gonna be using fish that's a great fertilizer if you can get fish at a local bait store or if you like we we just go down to the dam down there and we'll throw a cast net and catch up a bunch of gizzard shad and chop them up and that's what we use in the whole gizzard shad is a great fertilizer and don't don't really eat gizzard shad but it sure makes a great fertilizer so anyway that's what we're gonna be doing and when you put the fish in the hole be sure to cover it with some pulverized dolomitic limestone plain old garden lime if you don't the smell of that fish down there decay and it's going to attract animals and dogs and things and they're gonna come over and dig up to get to that fish and sure enough they're gonna dig up your plants so be sure to lime it next thing you do once you've got the fish in the hole is you want to back fill this hole with a new back fill and what I use is one part peat two parts black cow cow manure and one part topsoil I'll blend all that together and I'll backfill this up and I'll mound it up see how I got a kind of a hill I want to heal that up now today when we go out there I'm not going to be able to use the peat or the or the topsoil because of you know the health conditions we're not able to go into town because we're on stay home orders because of the sickness that's going around so I'm going to go ahead and just go with just all black cow cow manure for my backfill but if it wasn't for the stay home order here in Florida I would have gone down and got some peat and some topsoil to mix together so normally that's how I would do this but today you'll see us out there all I'm using in the black cow and that's the reason why but anyway you want to backfill in a nice big backfill and mounded up where it's a hill see what I'm talking about a hill that's what I'm talking about it's a hill there then when you put your plan in I usually like to put in about three or four plants per hill okay since this is 24 inches at least three or four and these things are going to these vines are going to run out of here and they're going to run across the ground and if you're lucky you know a good harvest should get one watermelon at the most to off of a single plant so it's not a high yield but it's worth it but you know on like sweet potatoes for example the vine would run and it would hit that leaf node right there and if it's touching the ground it would root out and it would make more potatoes and this one would root out and make more potatoes and this one would root out but watermelons don't do that they just have a long run and then out here somewhere along to end though it it's going to develop the melon so that's why you need a lot of space because the vines have to run and get very mature and very healthy before they'll produce the melon so that's what you're looking for one or two melons at the most and they're gonna be a long time getting here so be patient all right I'm going to be adding blood meal in the hole when I put in this little plant we started them from seed remember and for the seedless watermelon I have to add in a pollinator to go with it so I put in three pollinators in each Hill and two at least two seedless watermelon seedlings that way the pollinator will set will pollinate the seedless watermelon plants because without the pollinator of course it won't produce a watermelon so keep that in mind if you're doing seedless now on our rattlesnake Georgia rattlesnake watermelon there there's watermelons that have seeds in them already and they pollinate their self-pollinating so we don't have to put a pollinator room with that type so we're growing that type basically for our chickens so they have some healthy refreshing watermelon in the heat of the summer so that's how we're doing it after you get these plants start to get some traction you're gonna have to put in a sod dress side dress these things with a heavy dose of blood meal about every two to three weeks so come back and keep them fed because they're big heavy feeders and watch your water so this is it I think we're about ready to have my take going out here and get started getting these things in will put this a little diagram here on our Facebook page as well as our community tab on our YouTube channel if you want to download this JPEG and you know refer to it later so anyway we're ready to get started and get these watermelon on the road so we'll see you out at Earth Garden [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well we got her done daily put in 40 hills of watermelon took us two days to get it done cuz we're getting kind of old and we could hang with it and we could get it all done in one day picking up all them bags of cow manure kind of wore me down but anyway we got her done we've got the irrigation running getting it all watered in just right so we'll be looking forward to the days ahead is this watermelon grows and turns into some beautiful vines so you know be sure to stay tuned for part two of this video because we're going to watch the progression of all these the watermelon vines all the way out until we harvest them cut some open so that'll be coming out shortly so anyway we hope that our videos brought a smile to your face and a little joy to your day and then tell me and Nancy and Bingbing see you next time always remember Bias hands we're fed give us Lord our daily bread amen have a blessed day [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Hollis and Nancys Homestead

Views: 188,039

Keywords: growing watermelon, garden, growing guide, complete growing guide, gardening, beginning a garden, how to grow, complete, how to grow watermelon, watermelon trellis, harvesting watermelon, tutorial, how to grow a garden, watermelon, How-to (Website Category), hollisnancyshomestead, huge harvest, planting watermelon, watermelon harvest

Id: OpGqNg85-50

Length: 26min 16sec (1576 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021