Turnip of Power | Gardening Adventures

Posted on August 31st, 2009 by Turnip in Gardening

Obviously I’m dreaming again. The chance of a pretty young female smiling at me is pretty slim, despite my Internet fame and fortune. Back in May I had planted a row of Sugar Baby Watermelons and completely forgot about them. They started out as these tiny little vines that I knew from the start would never get the sun and heat they required. I ignored them until the beginning of August.

There were these vines extending out of the garden sprawling all over the yard, up and over the garden fence . At first I thought it was a weed until I saw this tiny green melon hanging from the vine. real melon No way a watermelon could safely grow in size suspended like that, so I had to cut the melon off the fence to get it back on ground level. Watermelons cling onto things by grabbing on and then growing a knot. It’s pretty cool how strong they attach themselves to objects.

Despite my best efforts I managed to wound the skin of the hanging melon. Rather than see it go bad, I picked it a bit prematurely. I didn’t know how premature yet, but the melon pictured was almost the 8 inch diameter claimed on the seed pack. It did make a nice “thunk” when I knocked on it. There was only one way to find out: Cut it open.

Cut Melon

As you can see the inside was only slightly pink. The picture on the seed package shows the inside a dark pink. Still, the flesh was soft and sweet. The taste and texture was more like a honeydew than a watermelon. In my book this is still a win. I was half expecting a slithering mound of worms to come crawling out or something. I bet if I had waited 2 more weeks it would have been perfect. No worries, there are plenty more growing. Some as big as the one I cut open, others the size of an apple.

Lessons learned:

Watermelons require a lot of room and sunlight. Planted early, they don’t do much until July-August.
They really sprawl and cling onto anything they can grab, then they grow straight up, even 5-10 feet off the ground. Problem is what to do with a 10 pound watermelon dangling in the air.
Better to pinch off the smaller fruits and allow the plant to concentrate on making one big melon than 4 small ones.
Use mulch under the growing melon so that it doesn’t sit on the soil directly.

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Paul (54 comments) says:

August 31, 2009 at 1:02 pm

I have heard about cantaloupe growing in this fashion, although not watermelons. They say it is better to grow this way since it is off the ground and it is less likely to rot. I was thinking about growing melons this way as it seems to take up less space, since they grow up not out.

Are you growing other types of melons?

Turnip (768 comments) says:

August 31, 2009 at 3:29 pm

I planted cantaloupe seeds in a tray, but only 3 germinated, and those died shorty after I planted them in the ground. I’m going to do a super job reconditioning my soil this fall with compost and lime in hope of making it more productive. I recorded a 5.5 on a PH test earlier this year, but not much I can do while the plants are growing. Way too acidic for good growth, though the tomatoes loved it. I was thinking about building an “S” shaped iron trellis for the watermelon vines next year. Then I could use a net for any growing melons and hang them off the ground. With the cost of iron, I might do better with a grape vine type wire trellis and just wrap the vines back and forth.