Pruning Watermelons! WHAT?!

Hey Neighbor! Should you prune watermelons? How to fertilize watermelons? Watermelons can be tricky and we all want to grow the biggest watermelons possible! Focusing on providing the right nutrients for your plants is the best way to produce healthy plants with big fruits! Tune in to hear all of Hoss' secrets to keeping his watermelon plants healthy! Get Dirty and Let's Grow Together!

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0:00 Start
0:48 Should you prune your watermelons?
1:50 How to fertilize watermelons?
5:33 What pollinators are important for watermelons?
6:50 How to grow big watermelons?

[gigiartstudiowithartistvir]

I never prune runners. I am fortunate to have the space to let my melons sprawl. I drip irrigate, and don't fertilize because my soil is plenty rich in nutrients from top dressing each season with fully composted organic material and straw mulch. Last summer I had one Crimson Sweet watermelon vine produce about 25 gorgeous delicious melons. My tomatoes loved sprawling all into the watermelon vine and I didn't prune them either. I had the biggest bumper crop of tomatoes I ever had off one plant by letting them do what they wanted. I planted my seeds, put the drip irrigation on timers, and got too busy to fuss around in the garden, even had to leave town for a month. When I came back the weeds were up to my chest in some places, but my garden produced like crazy! Since I left my lettuce to bolt, I now have about 200 heads of lettuce growing all over, even in our lawn haha. The bunnies are happy! :)

[hunnybunnysheavymetalmusic]

Squash bees can be increased by putting out a cluster of those little cardboard tubes you get off of hangers.

Take some place near the garden where you plan to plant melons, squash, pumpkins or gourds, and make sure they can remain dry and above freezing all winter, and in the spring you'll have a ton of healthy squash bees every ear.

[michaellovetere]

He's right, one of the things these watermelons love is Boron....A cheap way to do this is to ...get some 20 mule team borax...Put a tablespoon in a gallon of water mix well before putting it in a watering can...This will make your melons sweeter. I always use this when my plants are just starting out and growing about a foot this helps.

[sshumkaer]

I just cut my leafs off its at the end of August and I was hoping it would speed up the growth, and in North Dakota there isn't much time

[duncand]

I have grown watermelons for over 50 years. I don’t prune my vines. I keep them “turned in”. And I space my vines further apart. This new thing about planting watermelons and other vining crops so close together, I can’t get with and don’t do.

[ptrain]

Watermelon plants do not put down roots along the vine like pumpkins do. The only root system that watermelon is back at the base of the plant. So the only fertilizing that you do should be back around the base of the plant.

[denniskemnitz]

Use nitrate eh for watermelon fertilization. Great to hear from you...

[carbunklestine]

Nice pecan tree, this was very useful. Thanks

[williamkuhns]

I live in central coastal California and planted seedlings last week of May. Not enough pollinating insects here so i have had to hand pollinate the female flowers. Pick a couple male flowers with visible fresh pollen and pinch off petals then contact the male anthers to the female stigmas in morning. Have had good luck this way and now have Sugar Baby, Charleston Gray and Mountain Yellow varieties with viable fruit. I pruned the side shoots to train dominant first shoot to grow in a line and prune the first five leaves up from base of stem. Dont prune to close to melon as this can stop its growth. Downside here in this climate only allows one melon per vine as more than one melon on a single vine can take too much energy and melons are stunted and stop developing at a certain stage. About five weeks from pollination to harvest has been the average time here. Look for the tendril opposite a melon to turn brown and dry and a yellow or white spot where melon contacts ground are good signs of ready to pick.

[michaellovetere]

Lack of pollinators ruined my garden last year. This year used Mason bees and leafcutter bees....better pollinators than honey bees....Garden doing great this year. just a suggestion.

[NCF]

I'm from Litchfield county in CT. I plant my watermelons in a 25 ft. raised row covered with IRT plastic film. The row has 5 'hills' spaced 4 feet apart. Each consists of a hole 18 inch deep made with a post hole digger. The hole is filled 3/4 the way with composted cow (stuff) and a handful of bone meal is added. This is mixed thoroughly and then the hole is filled level with topsoil. A drip line (0.6 gal / hr.) is placed with bright yellow markers to indicate where the holes are. The row is then covered with IRT film and the soil is allowed to warm for about a week. The watermelon seeds are started in 1 quart plastic pots filled with Promix BX. There are 3 seeds to a pot. After about 2 weeks, the young plants have their secondary leaves and are ready to plant. Openings are cut in the plastic film where the prepared holes are. Sufficient soil is removed to accept the plants. The plastic pot is slipped off the root ball which is placed in the hole. Soil is replaced around the plants and firmed in place. On either side of the raised row is placed a 5 ft. weed blocking fabric. This keeps the weeds out and the melons clean. The two varieties of watermelons I plant are Sweetie Pie and Sangria. These perform well in my growing zone (6) with some melons getting larger than 20 lbs. They are exceptionally sweet and delicious, better than you can buy at the supermarket. I will try pruning the vines that run beyond the weed block area. I started growing watermelons as a challenge to the claim that you can't grow good watermelons in CT. Thanks for your gardening tips. I really enjoy your channel.

[drbecktex]

I didn't leave enough room on mine cause I didn't expect them all to live. Lol. I'm just gonna run them up and down the fence and let the melons stay on the ground.

[RobertUnderwoodJr-bz]

Hey Hoss I sprayed spinosad on my tomatoes because they are eat up with worms and I even mixed it stronger and it hasn’t made any difference. What do you recommend I do?

[jaynagala]

Common garden techniques are to pruning and cutting off water to sweeten up the fruit. Do you cut off water close to harvest?

[aaronedmunds]

what is used on the leaves for powdery mildue? thanks

[Peachy]

Can all this info be applied to cantaloupe plants as well?

[Mstymntntop]

Can you fertilize at the original point of planting (raised bed) or do you need to fertilize all of the vines where they are sprawling out at? I’ve grown watermelons up a trellis and supported them, but would prefer to let a dozen plants run out of my raised beds, with the raised beds acting as the main water/nutrient source.

[knoxurbanhomestead]

So what's a good nitrate nitrogen fertilizer?

[Christopher-rkwi]

Ive got a question?? Im gonna start the watermelons this Saturday with the youngsters.. We live in arkansas ive not ever grown my own garden in my dads memory who passed last june this june we started one in hia memory so any tips to be successful would be so greatly appreciated.

[denniskemnitz]

Where did you hear about boron for watermelon at blossum set? Whats wrong with ammonia fertilization for watermelon...