oh that looks delicious! I started picking mine a couple of days ago. I have yellow meated watermelons. I can't tell when they're ripe, I just thump around on them and pull them. We don't eat enough to worry about it and they're all volunteers anyway :-)

OK, dumb question: How do I tell when they are ready to pick? I've never planted them before but have about 6 baby ones that were supposed to only grow to 8-10 lbs. Of course I don't remember when I planted them or even how long they were supposed to grow. I also have a terrible record for picking out good ones from the grocery store so don't hold out much hope for the thumping method either. Is there any other way? They are about the size of big grapefruits & pretty pale. Patty

Mick,

Congratulations! It is ALWAYS a big deal to harvest something yummy from the garden, so I am happy for you! I hope y'all enjoy every single bite of it.

Watermelons generally crack because either (a) they get a large surge of moisture as they are ripening, either from irrigation or a heavy rain, or (b) they are ripe....or even overripe. As long as you get to the cracked melon before the ants do, cracking isn't really a problem.

One of our "old farmer" neighbors dropped off a huge watermelon here at the house on Sunday. It was about 40 lbs. and I have it chilling out in the garage refrigerator. He grows lots of them every year, but told me he had to hurry up and harvest a lot on Saturday and Sunday because the coyotes were getting them. (Coyotes adore watermelons, muskmelons and cantaloupes.)

I generally grow Sugar Baby, Bush Sugar Baby and Blacktail Mountain, although I also like to try a new variety or two every year. For years, Sugar Baby was my favorite, but once I tasted Blacktail Mountain, it quickly became our new fave. I usually grow 2 or 3 red-meated varieties, at least one yellow-meated variety and at least one orange-meated variety every year.

Patty,

There are no dumb questions here. There are several clues that will help you determine if watermelons are ripe enough to harvest, and it still can be hard to tell sometimes. Some of my "old farmer" neighbors still will cut a "plug" from a melon to see if it is ripe. It if isn't ripe enough, they replace the plug. (I've never done this myself because I would think the plug would attract ants and other pests!)

First, as they ripen, your watermelons ought to approach the approximate size that the seed packet or plant tag told you to expect. If you are growing a variety that tends to get to about 20 lbs., odds are a melon won't be ripe when it is at only 10-12 lbs.

Secondly, check the the underside of the melon--the part that lies on the ground. It will be about the same color as the rest of the watermelon early in the season, but it will turn to a dull cream to pale yellow color as it matures. Also, that dull cream to pale yellow color will have a texture that feels slightly different from the rest of the watermelon rind.

Third, the tendral (tail) on the stem NEAREST to where the melon is attached to the vine should be dried, a dull brown in color and withered if the melon is near or at maturity.

Fourth, thump the melon and listen to the sound it makes. An immature melon will make a sharp ringing sound. A ripe melon will make a dull, hollow sound.

Finally, one fairly foolproof method is to look at your vines daily as flowers are forming and pollination is occurring. When you notice that pollination has occurred and a small watermelon is forming, jot down the date on your calendar, a notepad, a garden journal, etc. In normal conditions, you should have a ripe melon about 45 days after pollination occurs.

It is REALLY easy to get excited and harvest your watermelons too early. One way to avoid this is to make yourself wait another 3 to 7 days (depending on weather conditions) AFTER you truly think it is ready. A truly ripe watermelon can handle sitting there ripe for a few extra days and it helps to ensure that you don't harvest too early.

Once you've grown watermelons a couple of years, you'll know the signs of ripeness and won't really have to worry about whether they are or aren't ripe--it will become one of those things that you "just know".

As for your description of watermelons that are the size of big grapefruits and pretty pale, I'd say that based on your description they probably aren't ripe yet. Even if you are growing one of the smaller icebox type watermelons, they usually get to at least 6 to 8 lbs although they may stay a bit smaller in really dry years. Some watermelons do have fairly pale green skin so you just have to learn what is the proper color for that particular variety and you'll be able to tell if the rind is the "right" color for a ripe watermelon of that variety.

Good luck,

Dawn

Mick, that's a really pretty melon. Good job!

Thanks, Dawn. I'll try to wait. I'm mostly growing them cause the grandkids will like them, I think.
My kids live on the edge of Edmond & have small farms all around them. It seems like every one of them has a donkey so DIL asked why. She was told they keep the coyotes away. It's amazing to hear the coyotes like fruit. I love coming to this site for all the things I learn.

Hi Patty,

You're welcome.

Some of our neighbors use donkeys to keep coyotes, cougars and panthers away from their cattle, horses, goats, guineas or chickens. Donkeys can be REALLY mean. My DS and DH saw a video on-line once of a donkey attacking a cougar, and eventually that donkey had the cougar by the tail and was "swinging" it around. I can't remember if they told me the donkey killed the cougar or just ran it off, but they sure enjoyed the video.

On Sunday, a gardening friend of mine who has a sizeable watermelon and cantaloupe patch in some sandy soil directly beside the Red River, stopped by. He'd had to "hurry up" and harvest the rest of his melons because the coyotes were eating them nightly. Since he and his family couldn't eat them all, he was stopping by and giving them to all his lucky neighbors!

Coyotes struggle to find enough to eat, especially in years when their population is high. They love to eat melons of all kinds, but seem to like watermelon and muskmelon best. They also must NOT have any taste buds, because they'll eat peaches, plums and persimmons long before they ripen. I don't know how bad an upripened peach or plum would taste, but I know unripened persimmons are AWFUL.

Our local coyotes always check my compost pile to see if there is anything there they want to eat. I know they'll eat cucumbers too, so I throw any overripe or bitter cucumbers out by the fenceline for them to eat.

Since moving here from Fort Worth 9.5 years ago, I have learned that wildlife will eat all kinds of stuff I never thought of as "food" for them.

Dawn

okiedawn,
I know this is an older thread, but I was wondering if you (or anyone else) could tell me how Sugar Baby and Bush Sugar Baby differ? Which produces better, tastes better, is easier to grow, neater habit? I have a very small garden and would love to try to grow a watermelon. Thanks!
Kim

Hi Kim,

Hey--the reason "older threads" are out there and just waiting to be found via a search is so that we don't always have to start over from scratch when discussing a topic.

When I grow Sugar Baby and Bush Sugar Baby side by side, it is hard to see much difference in the two, but there are a couple of minor differences. Sugar Baby produces ripe melons a few days earlier thatn Bush Sugar Baby, and I don't know why. Sugar Baby produces slightly more fruit per plant than Bush Sugar Baby and the melons are larger. Bush Sugar Baby has very short vines--they only run about 3' or so from the main stem. Because Bush Sugar Baby is smaller, it really, really, really needs well-enriched soil and lots of water (more, I think, than Sugar Baby in my garden) in order to produce more than 1 or 2 melons per plant.

If I was choosing and could only plant one small watermelon in a smallish size garden, I'd choose Yellow Doll or Blacktail Mountain. Yellow Doll has amazing flavor and it is my favorite small-fruited yellow-flesh melon. Blacktail Mtn. produces very early in comparison to any other melon you can plant, the flavor is amazing and it is very productive. Blacktail Mountain produces larger melons than the Sugar Baby line.

By the way, you can grow Sugar Baby, Blacktail Mountain, or Yellow Doll, and perhaps Mickeylee or other similar sized melons, upwards on a trellis (like a tomato cage made out of concrete reinforcing wire or a cattle panel) and save space that way. Once the melons are getting softball-sized, I use cheesecloth or something similar (depending on what I have handy) tied to the panel like a hammock to "hold" and support the melon. I do the same thing with many cantaloupe and muskmelons, generally using pantyhose as their support. By growing upward, instead of outward, you can raise a lot more in the same space.

Let me know if you have any other questions that I might be able to answer.

Dawn

Dawn,
Thank you so much! I've never hear of Blacktail Mountain or Yellow Doll. I'll have to look into those. I love the idea of trellising watermelon, but I've never seen it done before. I wasn't sure if it was practical since I'm not too sure how watermelons grow yet. I might give it a try though.

Thanks again.
Kim

Kim,

Blacktail Mountain was developed by Glenn Drowns (Sandhill Preservation Center) when he lived in Iowa and was breeding for earliness so he'd have a chance of getting ripe melons in their short summers. It has amazing flavor, and anyone who's ever tasted one of them that we've grown here in the garden instantly proclaims it "the best watermelon ever". It also is very early for a watermelon and, at least in my garden, has great disease resistance. It produces larger melons than Sugar Baby and Bush Sugar Baby, at least as grown here in southern OK in our garden, and also produces more fruit per plant and produces earlier than the Sugar Baby line.

Yellow Doll has been around a while, and I think it probably is a hybrid but I'm not sure. It is a small watermelon with yellow flesh that is very tasty. Often, the smaller watermelon vines that produce small melons only produce 1 or 2 melons per plant. Yellow Doll produces a lot more--probably up to 8 to 10 to 12 per plant in a year with decent rainfall. It also has outstanding flavor.

A lot of times, the seeds we see in stores are there because they are promoted by large seed companies with huge marketing budgets, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are the best-flavored or best-producing plants. Sometimes you find real jewels at smaller firms who focus as much on flavor/productivity as other companies focus on profit. And I mean no disrespect towards the Sugar Baby line, the seed company that bred them, or the companies that sell them. They are fine melons--but I don't consider them "the best". I like to grow plants that give me great flavor and great productivity, so it is worth it to me to seek out specific varieties even though they may be hard to find.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Blacktail Mountain Info

Oh my gosh! I am sooooo sold on Blacktail Mountain and Yellow Doll! I am going to have to put them on my list. I would love to try them. I should have posted my questions earlier. I just bought seed for Bush Sugar Baby in the store.

I really appreciate you taking the time to answer all of my questions. Thank you!

Kim

Kim,

You are welcome. I can talk fruits and veggies all day. I grow trees, flowers, shrubs and other stuff too....but I love, love, love raising crops that we can eat.

Dawn

Dawn,
This coming season will be the first one that I grow more than just a few tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers. I planted some garlic in October, and I have plans to grow some lettuce, hot peppers, carrots, peas, red kidney beans, and watermelon. If I can find seeds for a shorter-vined pumpkin that makes a 5-10 pound pumpkin, I'll take a shot at growing them too. Right now my eye is on finding Orange Smoothie pumpkin seed once the stores put them out. I can't bear the thought of spending more on shipping than on seeds to get only one packet when I have no room to try anything else. Searching for them is still a lot of fun.

Kim

Kim,

Because of the drought, I am really, really having to cut back on what I grow and it is killing me to cut favorite varieties off my "grow list". Except for tomatoes, which always are allocated a disporportionate amount of space, I am only going to grow those veggies that are the best producers or the most drought-resistant.

So, for pumpkins I'll probably only grow Magic Lantern (chosen for disease-resistance) and Seminole (chosen for drought tolerance). I usually grow a lot of pumpkins and winter squash, but the drought is messing up all my plans.

Dawn

Dawn,

If I had to choose, I would keep tomatoes too. You can get a lot of fruit from them for the space they take up. Perhaps next season will be better for crops.

For my first attempt at growing pumpkins Orange Smoothie is on the top of my list for it's compactness and good size. It'll really depend on whether or not I can find seed for it in the stores. I would prefer an open-pollinated pumpkin that is compact, with good-sized pumpkins, but no luck so far.

Kim,

I can't think of any semi-bush orange pumpkins that are O-P off the top of my head, but there is one old heirloom hybrid(old being relative, I guess) that dates to the early 1940s called Bush Cheyenne. It was from a cross of New England Pie Pumpkin x Cocozelle that was made at the Cheyenne, Wyoming USDA Field Station. It might be related to the variety Cheyenne, which was a selection of New England Pie made in 1939. Bush Cheyenne stays pretty compact and produces a good yield of 5-8 lb. pumpkins. Their flavor is only so-so, though. It's one you might want to try one of these years if you're just wanting to grow decorative pumpkins.

Dawn

Dawn,
Thanks for the tip. I'll go look that up right now.
Kim

Cheyenne looks like a good pumpkin. I did see where other sites said the flavor was so-so. That's my only concern with it. I am tempted to try it anyway. I like that it's not a hybrid, so I can save seeds from it year to year. I'll look for the seeds in the store. It'll be Orange Smoothie or Cheyenne Bush...whichever I see first wins a spot in my garden.

Thanks for pointing out Cheyenne to me. I'm surprised I hadn't come across it yet.

Kim

Kim,

You're welcome. It if is old or obscure, I've probably grown it. A lot of the varieties I like are varieties that no one's ever heard of or they are varieties you can't find any more without a lot of digging and searching.

Good luck finding either one in a store. I've never seen Orange Smoothie or Bush Cheyenne here in southern OK (we don't have a lot of shopping options out here in the sticks, though). Orange Smoothie ought to be in stores, but I've never found it here. I have grown it from seed purchased in the early to mid-2000s, and it did OK for me, but the taste couldn't measure up to some of the old heirloom winter squash and pumpkin varieties that I grow. (It is a little known fact that many of the commercially-produced pumpkin pies we buy are not made from 'pumpkins' at all, but from winter squash, which have better flavor.)

I order about 75% of the seeds I plant online, because there are few open-pollinated ones available on the seed racks here, and even fewer that are heirlooms 50 years old or older. I don't grow in isolation, and I pack a lot of plants into a small space, so I don't save seed either, unless I've bagged blossoms, and most years I am too busy to even do that.

In the stores here, I can buy common, everyday stuff but the "special" stuff is hard to come by, so I just shop online and save myself the aggravation of searching for stuff locally and not finding it.

When I lived in Fort Worth, there were several places you could buy a wide variety of open-pollinated seeds and quite a few old heirloom varieties, but several of those places have been "swallowed up" by larger companies and no longer have the variety of seed they once had. And, since gasoline prices skyrocketed, I don't make it to Fort Worth as often as I used to, so I only visit the remaining store about twice a year.

There are several great online sources for heirloom seeds, and at least one of them probably has Cheyenne Bush. I've grown Orange Smoothie, and it was OK, but nothing special. I don't grow many true orange pumpkins any more, having had a lot of fun in recent years with the white, yellow, red (really, more of a reddish-orange), green, black and blue ones. Oh, and the striped ones. And the ones like "One Too Many" that defy description (it looks like a bloodshot eye minus the iris--hence, the name). And the warted ones. See, once you start exploring the world of heirloom and open-pollinated varieties, you can grow anything. Literally anything. : ) It keeps it interesting.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: One source for heirloom seeds

Dawn,
Have you ever grown Bushkin pumpkin? It sounds like one that would work for me, but I can't find any seed online.

I recently heard that the pumpkin in cans is really winter squash. Plus that "cantaloupe" in stores is really muskmelon. Who knew? :)

Perhaps I need to research winter squash. A lot of catalog descriptions for them say they are "excellent for pies", but are they referring to pumpkin pie? A large part of my desire to grow pumpkins is so I can try to make homemade pumpkin pie. I'm not even sure where to begin to look for a winter squash. There are so many to choose from. All I know is that it would have to be short-vined. Do you have any suggestions?

Kim

Kim,

I haven't grown Bushkin because back when it was introduced I was gardening in a shady place in Fort Worth where I had enough sunshine to grow 6 tomato plants and some herbs and greens and not much more. There was not enough sunny space for pumpkins. That was in the mid-1980s (?) or maybe very early 1990s. It was a Burpee introduction and, like most 'new' selections, it was only around for a few years. I bet I haven't seen it in a seed catalog at all in the 2000s, and I'm not sure it was around in the mid- to late-1990s.

Since this is a 'watermelon' thread, I'll start a new thread on winter squash and pumpkins so that future searches on this forum will find the 'winter squash' discussion. Sometimes, when a discussion morphs from one thing to another, we need to start a new thread just so we can find the topic later if we need to refer back to it. Hope the new thread is OK with you. I'm going to go start it now.

Dawn

Sounds great!

Yeah, lets get back to watermelon, it has only been 14 years since anyone has written on this thread! lol No pumpkin patch talk from me! I am here for the melons. I just put in Yellow doll, Sugar baby, and Bush sugar along with 13 other vines. For those in Florida! I would like to know your opinion of Blacktail Mountain. I Think Blacktail Mountain thrives in the West more then here, and that is a guess! I grew it twice and it was a bland melon while my Sugar Baby's pumped out sweet quality fruit. I actually recorded a 20 lb Sugar Baby and many in the upper teens. It may not be as fine grained as I like, but it wasn't far off. Yellow Doll is in a league of it's own and my favorite early melon with manageable sized vines. Always sweet to the rind!

Chuchurso1, I like to try to grow watermelon also, but here in estern Arkansas good watermelon soil is hard to find. Most of our soil is shallow clay, and some soil is pretty rocky. My neighbor has a produce stand and I think he bought some Blacktail mountain melons to sell and I got one, the melon was good. I think those melons were trucked in from Florida, or the east coast.

I like to grow Sugar Baby melons also because they produce fast and are productive. MY #1 melon is Crimpson Sweet, mainly because it seems to have smaller seeds. The Sugar Baby would be my #1 if it did not have so many seeds in it. My wife does not like picking the seeds out, I just eat the seeds with the melon, that is why I like the Crimpson Sweet. I tell my wife that she discriminates, she does not pick the seeds out of okra, beans, corn, tomatoes, strawberries, and many other fruits and vegetables.

slowpoke_gardener I know your soil, since I have a home in Hiawassee Georgia which sits on clay and big rock or smaller rock at every square ft of soil. Not easy for sure! I am growing 2 vines of Crimson Sweet and 2 more Crimson Sweet offspring in an orange version called LEELANAU, which is a cross with Orangeglo. It has shown me so far that it is a less vigorous vine at the beginning but we shall see once it gets established how it does. Sugar baby has always done well for me and out here, it is still a great melon IMO. Are you getting bags of sand for your row or are you growing in a square plot? I do this type of work for a living so I am used to working with challenged soil, being a graduate of UF in this field of study!

Chuckurso1, It sounds like you are in good shape as far as growing food goes.

I am old and retired. Most of my working life I was in manufacturing, metal working, mostly.

I live on 70 acres, which in mostly pasture of hay fields, but I have a few gardens scattered around on the place. I now do most of my gardening with machines. My body is just to old and beat up to garden like most gardeners do.

I don't want to haul sand into my gardens, it might help, but that would be too big of a job to start this late in life, but I do try to amend the soil and grow cover crops.

I just got through tilling my pasture garden, and tilled in a row collards by mistake. This is a new garden and I did not have the rows marked well, I needed to re plant anyway.

slowpoke_gardener, I do understand what you mean. That is a lot of land! You obviously worked yourself hard all your life and put in your dues, that is for sure! I am actually a senior citizen by age now but that is where it ends for I followed the Jack LaLanne lifestyle all my life. When I grow my melons, I am dealing with 24 ft of row at most, and 6 ft wide. I use a double row planting method so they are spaced 3 ft apart. I only plant 14 melons for I am not trying to feed the World. lol I fertilize once and get my soil perfect. I was asking about how you grew your melons because if you grew in rows, it would be simple to till in a few bags of sand in a row and it would make a huge difference. You are smart, you use machines! I live with sandy soil, I just have to hand dig it 2 feet down with a spade and get a little workout in, Sand out here is way different then your clay. I will take a tiller all day long over a spade out by your neck of the woods.

chuckurso1, If I go 2 ft. down I would need a back hoe, which I don't have, and I would just create a slow draining pond. The way I combat shallow soil is to try to amend the soil and making it deeper.

I like to build a berm on the low side of my garden with some type of organic matter. The berm helps with erosion, and as it decays I toss it on the garden and build another berm with whatever organic matter I have access to.

Here is the berm on the south end of my south garden. The sweet potatoes are growing over the berm. This year my berm is wood chips, last year it was hay. You can see that Johnson grass has pretty well taken over my sweet potatoes because of the Jonson grass seed in last years berm being tilled into the soil.

We have had a lot of hot days this summer and I have had trouble getting the fall garden started, so I tried starting greens in the shade in my north garden. The germination was much better, but I expect the growth to be slower, but that will work till I can get later plantings to catch up.

This is my newest garden, it was started this year. Above the garden you can see my supply of scrap hay, I plan on using for berms or mulch. The hay is a little rough for mulch, but I will use it if I cant find anything better. Across the highway you can see my wildlife garden area, I have 6 small gardens over there, all are larger than this one.

I have had health issues this year an the place looks a little "scrappy", but with the weather cooling off I will start getting things cleaned up.

slowpoke_gardener That looks great!!!!! I see exactly what you are doing. I was just responding on getting sand in that row, one way or another, if that was the problem. Only you know that soil of yours, for you have had it in your hands one million times. From what I see, you need another name besides slowpoke_gardener. Maybe the Lone Ranger!