What's the key to growing them to maturity? I can get them to softball size and a little bigger, then they either rot or bust open. What the heck? Also, am I suppose to trim the vines at some point?

What kind of watermelons did you plant ? I don't trim mine but I will pull off some of the blossoms or small melons.

The deer are taking care of mine so I’ve given up on them.

I think key is getting them in early and the cold not killing them....i planted pretty late and got some baseball size now...i. wondering if they gonna reach maturity...

Watermelons are often a lesson in disappointment

I planted crimson sweets in April. You would think some of them would be close to ready by now.

I planted my first patch april 28. They should be ready today. I just picked one and tried it, it was about a week away from being good and ripe. I also have way more halfhrown watermelons than large watermelons. If your plants germinate quickly, come up growing, and the first set of blooms set a crop, you will have melons early. Heavy rains while they are blooming will knock off watermelons and cause them to be later. I have seen 90day watermelons get ready in 75days in a real hot sunny summer. This has not been a great year for growing watermelons because of the weather this spring. But the weather were having now is exactly what they need.

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I planted in early April. Not a great year for me but I've had worse. Picked one last week that was 28# . Looks like that may ne my biggest of the year. I normally always grow one or 2 over 30 but I haven't gotten a measurable rain in weeks and the weeds are comin on strong.

Milognite , sold at Co Co will keep deer away, look it up at the testimonies on there web site

What kind is that shiloh?

I had another one split today. I may give up after this go round. My third year trying and haven't got a good watermelon yet.

Desert kings

Good looking melon

Desert King are the best, they use to grow them in Bull mountain bottom and they were delicious. I have some planted this year waiting to see how they are do.

I have the same problem. Mine dont get bigger than a softball before splitting. Read online they need better drainage. Going ot mix the soil with some sand next year when making the mounds.

I grew crimson sweets in pots this year. It was my first time growing watermelons. I had two split and two made it. I believe I watered them too much which lead to the splitting. I backed off on the water and the last two made it and tasted great. I put two in each pot and I believe it was too much competition. Next year I will pUt one per pot.

Got watermelons planted in two patches. They did pretty well in the one patch but they’re all splitting in the other. Seems like the drainage is about the same but I don’t know.

It sounds like to much water. I have never planted any of these small round melons but I would think they would be the same as Jubilees or Charleston Grays. Watermelons love fallow ground and they don't need as much water as you think.

I've got 2 left on the vine. Had a bunch to start with, but maybe these 2 will make it to pickin time.

What kind did you plant?

Crimson sweet

We planted crimson sweets. They do pretty good. Just got our first melon yesterday and it was awesome

I planted Charleston Grey they done pretty good, most 25-30 lbs. Been eating a lot of watermelon for the last week or so.

Evidently a Charleston gray seed got mixed up with some of the seed I purchased. It produced 2 decent size mellons but I guess growing amongst the yellow Mellon altered them some how. They where a almost pink and taste like lettuce.

My watermelons didn't do much this year...we got a couple of Sugar Babies and the others just did not do worth a poot. I had splitting issues too...lots of rain.

I checked my field this afternoon. I have a row of Jubilee about 100' long and have 40-50 in the 20lb range. The deer are starting to eat the vines.

Make sure your pH is right. If it's too low you'll get blossom end rot. Also too much water at the wrong time is bad. My son sold over$1600 off about two acres this year. We picked 111 yesterday. That will end us for the year. Wish I could post pics. We had the truck loaded down.

We split open our little watermelon yesterday. Thing was quite small for a crimson sweet, but dang it was tasty. Probably one of the sweeter ones I've ever had.