your only hope is to cease all attempts to resist and learn to accept your condition!
don't think melons will work well on a trellis due to the weight of the fruit, providing they do their job well! melons are heavy feeders, so if you put good rich soil in the barrels, some light balanced fert will work, or if not so good a soil, may need more of a nitrogen boost early on, like fish fert

good luck w/ them, I recently heard that watermelon are in the top 3 fruits for nutritional value!

Bill

Try aerated compost tea recipes too, as a foliar/soil drench application on the melons.

if you run them up a trellis you can tie old pantyhose anround them and hang the pantyhose from the fence/trellis to support them. sorry i know nothing about fertizilation.
good luck to you!
christina

Ok...I've accepted my condition and embrace it with pride. I'm not embarassed in the slightest. Nope. However, I did promise my husband I wouldn't buy one more thing to plant in the yard/ever-expanding-garden.

But that was yesterday! And the nursery (a new one I'd never been to) had such a great deal on more baby watermelons. Plus, I HAD to! I was talking to the lady about the fact that my cabbage hasn't formed any heads yet despite being planted before Mother's Day. She gave me, free of charge, some more to try even though I hadn't bought the original ones at her nursery.

What could I do? I HAD to buy SOMETHING right? I didn't wanna look like a schmo! But really folks...this IS it! At least until I begin with my cool season garden which I'm currently investigating!

I am suffering the same condition but have responded by getting more land! In addition to my home plot have two community garden plots one in my own town and one in the next one. Luckily one of them is near a really great dog walk area which I would probably visit daily anyway. Thought of asking an old guy I know to let me use some of his unused garden but then thought I was spreading myself too thin! All plants doing well except for a few catterpillar eaten ones. All the best.

I bought some watermelon plants at a local nursery (actually twice this week). I got 2 of the plants in the ground already. I'm wondering, if I wait a bit before putting the other 2 in the ground, will they be ready to harvest a bit later than the first two? If so, how long can I safely wait? They are Sugar Babies.

Sugar Babies are some of the earlier ripening melons because of their size. I recommend just letting them flop over the side, and only supporting the ones that might develop in the spot where the plant hangs over. Supports like panty hose would work, but I would suggest not trellising this size.

Congrats on your new hobby, I'm relatively new as well, and can't help expanding. I just plowed up another 20'x30' area in our garden for some more melons. :)

Read all about my garden here http://garden.theaustinite.com .

Here is a link that might be useful: Our Garden

the austinite, your webpages have inspired me to plant watermelons and pumpkins. Your photos are beautiful and it is interesting to see how the plants progress over time. Great work.

I live in zone5 and the earliest I can transplant watermelon is last days of May....last year I got some but I am not sure if my soil prepn was the best. Would you, please tell me how I can prepare the soil and what fertilizer to use and when.Thanks.

Whoa! Someone's been reading the back issues!! Wasn't so long ago that you couldn't go back that far.

Prepare the soil with mulch and organic fertilizer. Oops! Too late, May just went by. Still you can fertilize with organic fertilizer any and every day of the year. I'd start with a heaping handful of alfalfa meal/pellets on top of the plant's root zone once a month.

I have the same addiction. I am a Manic Gardener..... I am almost out of land myself. Hubby is becoming codependant to my condition by considering aiding to it in the future with more land. He is also considering wine making which will in the end add to the mania. The side effects we know will be healthy bodys, good drink and adding to our system many healthy snacks. Oh what should a woman like us do? Slim fast does not work when cooking and gardening is your addiction and the intense exersize in buying and squeezing in more. Oh I am so happy my husband is so understanding as he eats the sugar snap peas harvested from the vine non hesitantly......
On the website I bought my watermelons they suggested fishnet to put the melons in. You would maybe use an S hook to hook it on the trellis and fishnet.
Cheryl

Melons are fairly heavy feeders and require regular water for good production. You should expect to water those containers every day and even then I would mulch the top of the soil in the containers around the plants to help conserve moisture. I would mix an organic dry fertilizer like Epsoma's into the mix in the container and you should still expect to have to fertilize fairly regularly. I use fish emulsion on my container plants.