I've been trying to grow two kinds of yellow fleshed watermelon. One is the spotted Moon and stars the other is from some seeds I saved from last year's harvest (Which I planted from seeds I saved from a Watermelon I bough from Pecos NM the year before that).

Anyway, the non-spotted plant seems to be 'aborting' its fruit: The watermelon will begin to grow on the vine but will shrivel up, turn black and fall off the vine by the next day. The fruit never gets bigger than .5 to .75 inches before dying.

The plant appears to be healthy; it has to be about 10 to 12 feet in diameter now (at its widest point) and it's a healthy green (no leaf deformities or damage). I estimate that I give it about an inch of water a day (It get's hot down here in S. New Mexico.).

About three weeks ago, when the plant was maybe a couple feet in length, we went out of town for a week. The person overlooking our garden neglected to water the plants for the last half of the week. The plant was in poor condition when we got back. This is the only reason I can think of why this could be happening. Last year I never had this problem. Any ideas?