Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk AL Garden and Farm Watermelon!!

I got 72 plants earlier in the late spring to plant but rain set in and it was too wet to put them in the ground. The plants ended up getting long and leggy in the trays. I took a few of the plants and went stick them in my old plies of rice chaff compost. I didn’t expect any of them to survive but every one of them took off. They covered the whole compost pile and a chunk of the yard. Got melons everywhere. Picked the first one a couple days ago and I’m impressed. No fertilizer and only water they got was from the few rains we had. These are Summer Sweet 720s. And the sweetness is off the charts. Needless to say I ordered a bunch of seed for next spring. Should have several more the same size or bigger ready in a few days.

Nice! Nothing like a sweet melon!

That is a hefty melon. I like hefty melons....

Love me some watermelon

It was the best watermelon crop I've had. The melon in the picture is 43# the biggest melon I've grown.
I've grown a tri axle load of 38#ers but never had one over 40. Got rain when it mattered most.

Very nice!! I wish I could have gotten mine planted on time. I’ll be ready for em next spring.

I envy you guys that have the property to grow them. My grandpa used to grow cantaloupes that were probably the sweetest that I have ever eaten, but I have only ever known one guy that was successful growing watermelons.

Marsh-How do you tell when they are ripe?

I have picked a couple already that had the stem and the other little thing “tindrel???” dead as well as being yellowed on the ground side. They were not ripe. I have never had trouble identifying a ripe melon before but this year I am struggling. Any hints would be appreciated!

I go by the dried up curly thing and the yellowing.

Me too, but this year mine aren’t ripe. I can’t figure what is going on. I filled the loader bucket last week with melons I thought were ripe and gave them to all the neighbors. Only 2 said theirs were ripe.

Awesome thread - ain’t planted garden In a while - miss it

Absolutely lov a watermelon if it sweet! Just had a giant from grocery store that was awesome

I watched an Amish guy on YouTube break down how to pick a ripe watermelon. One of the main criteria was that the melon be butter colored where it touches the ground. I've used his method of picking them this summer and it's worked out well

I planted about 100 different varieties and it rained literally everyday from May to August and destroyed my crop. This summer was terrible. Everything else was ok except my melons and cantaloupe.

Them 720s are delicious

I switched gears and didn’t grow melons in the 80x300’ area this year, but pumpkins instead. Found out real quick there’s a lot more money and way less work growing pumpkins

The dry tindrel and crème belly worked most of the time but I picked a couple too early. Made me wonder if you could extract some juice with one one those turkey injectors without hurting the melon.