These Little Tricks Will Make Your Watermelons Very Happy!

hey neighbor here's some tricks to keep your watermelons happy because we're counting on a bumper crop this summer now these watermelons right here were transplanted but you can direct seed your watermelons into the ground the trick is soil temperature so watermelons will germinate in the ground when you have a soil temperature between 68 and 95 degrees anything below 70 degrees soil temperature you're going to have slow and not very good germination but anything above about 75 or 77 your watermelon should germinate and pop up anywhere between five and seven days now when direct seeding watermelons I like to plant them a little bit thick maybe about six to eight inches apart and you want to plant them one inch deep now we'll come back after the immersion we'll thin out to about one plant ever two foot in row now our in between row spacing is going to need to be anywhere between four and six feet we normally like to plant our watermelons on well-drained soils not in about bottom or air that's going to stay wet watermelons don't like wet feet we want to keep them in well-drained soils now the ideal soil for watermelon is a Sandy long soil however if you've got clay type soils you can grow watermelons in it just make sure you don't plant them down in the bottom where it will not drain watermelons or can the cantaloupe squash and cucumbers and rotation is really important to watermelons because they get diseases real bad specifically soil diseases so we want to make sure that we have a good rotation plan and that you're not planting watermelons back in the same spot a good rotation is watermelons or cantaloupes or any squash or cucumbers on that plot every four to five years so a four to five year rotation is best and the soil pH of 6 to 6.5 is perfect all right so we're at the stage now we need to really concentrate on keeping these watermelons happy we want to make sure they got plenty of moisture all the nutrients they need to grow a lot of Vine at this point we're really want to concentrate on growing vine because we're going to need that vine to protect those watermelons protect them from the Sun also we're going to need a lot of vines so we have a nice healthy plant a good fertility schedule is going to keep these Vines going to make plenty of foliage there all right so we know we need NP in case we use a balanced fertilizer on these watermelons but we also need some micronutrients now the three micronutrients we really need to be concerned about with watermelons is sulfur zinc and Boron now your watermelons are also going to need some additional nitrogen so every other time that I fertilize I just use a nitrogen Source not a balanced fertilizer and the ones I recommend is Chilean nitrate or sodium nitrate or is your grandfather called Bulldog soda or calcium nitrate I really prefer calcium nitrate best because believe it or not watermelons can also get Blossom and running and we want to give this plant plenty of cast him so we don't have Blossom mineral as you see in this picture right here so when you're putting your nitrogen whether you're using calcium nitrate or Chilean nitrate on your watermelons there make sure to not get any on the foliage because you can burn that foliage that's the reason I prefer to inject it with the injector right into the root system all right so let's talk about those micronutrients it's really important to make a good watermelon crop zinc sulfur and Boron all those are included in this Micro Boost which has the complete package there and we like to put this in the injector there and inject it also makes it real quick and handy now another way you could do that is boron is the same thing is that 20 Mule borax that you see at your grocery store that people use as a laundry detergent you can use that it is a source of boron but you have to be a little bit careful with burn with it this product right here you don't have to be concerned about burn at all and as you know we're big proponents of using drip irrigation and drip irrigation is wonderful for watermelons because they Vine up so much we don't have to walk around and on our Vines to move a sprinkler around and we can inject all of our nutrients into that drip tape and put it exactly where it needs to be all right so let's talk about pollination because we've got to have pollinators if we're going to make watermelons you see that flower right there watermelons have male and female flowers there's a male flower at every node in a female flower about every seventh node now these flowers only last for one day after a day these are going and more come up a bumblebee or a honeybee has to visit this flower somewhere around seven times for it to be properly pollinated now poor pollination can result in very poor fruit set or misshaped fruits as you see in this picture right here so you got to have pollinators we have honeybees and you see this swollen lip right here I got hit yesterday afternoon late right there on the lip there so if you're going to have bees you're going to have to be a little tough even with ideal conditions it's not uncommon for watermelons to abort that flower and believe it or not Boron that micronutrients in that Micro Boost area has an effect on pollination and fruit set all right folks plant those watermelons and welds rain soils make sure your soil temp is where it needs to be above 70 75 degrees we want to make sure that we got good fertility we've got a good pH we've got a good NPK good balance fertilizer we've got to have good micronutrient levels such as sulfur zinc and Boron and then we've got to have good pollination we'll have all those things we keep those watermelons happy we're gonna make a bumper crop

Channel: HOSS

Views: 78,745

Keywords: hosstools, growyourownfood, vegetable garden, sustainable living, homestead, gardening tools, vegetablegardenseeds, seed companies, beginner gardener, beginner garden, gardening tips, guide to planting, best seed varieties, gardening supplies, simple gardening tips, raisedbedgardening, getdirty, hoss tools, gardening, Gardening tips and tricks, Homesteading, Home garden tips, Garden success tips, Grow your own food, Hoss tools seeds, Growing vegetables, How to grow vegetables

Id: A2p5ScBmn5k

Length: 5min 58sec (358 seconds)

Published: Tue May 02 2023