Maybe watermelons are different but I planted Ambrosia cantaloupes last year and watched a million of these pruning videos and practiced pruning the best I could. I didn't get a single edible cantaloupe. This year I stuck the seeds in the ground, kept them fed and watered and did absolutely nothing else except cut off a few dead leaves. They ripened early and I'm now eating the best cantaloups I've ever had. Going to have to give some away!
It's 10 years after. And I'm enjoying reading all the disagreements in the comment section. So after reading all the experts in the comment section I still can't decide whether to prune or not to prune lol. We've never pruned before. I think I'll do a controlled experiment and prune half of each variety and find out for myself.
I think I watched this video for the first time last year and I knew this year I’d grow better watermelons by doing this and I have!! I’m so grateful I’ve found this video. Definitely kept diseases out of my garden because I didn’t have a lot of vines and my plants got the circulation it needed!
This is my second year growing watermelons. I grow them in 7 gallon pots with tomato cages as a trellis. I started by pruning all of the suckers (shoots) to a single vine. Also, i have pruned off all other female flowers after the first fruit was pollinated. 1 single melon per plant. I have about 8 plants total. Last year i did not prune at all and each plant had 3 to 4 melons growing simultaneously and they all stayed relatively small. Most did not ripen in time with my short growing season here. I will be attempting this new technique next spring, looks interesting.
This would be my 4th year growing watermelons. I have never touch the plants. Last year, each plant grew one big (15 lbs. average) water melons per plant without touching anything. Extremely sweet, my neighbors said.
Enjoyed your video. I talked to an old farmer in the early 70's about growing watermelons, and he gave me several tips that I have followed all these years. You mentioned one of them about the curl to know when they are ripe. I only grow seeded melons because they are sweeter than seedless.
I don't prune ANY of the vines because I want maximum leaves on the plant to increase sugar...I do however ensure that I get no more than 3 melons per plant so the energy is concentrated into 1 to 3 melons
@@albertayunda5521 Albert im not a huge watermelon grower so ill take your advice. So is your stance that you can prune if you want but the watermelon will be less sweet? I ask because my garden is not huge so I grow a lot of plants vertically. Will I be ok if I let some go, and prune as needed?
I read recently that pruning vines is not necessary and that the vines help sweeten the watermelon. In those comercial fields in Georgia where they grow tons of watermelon, I have to wonder if they are out there pruning the vines.
Melons require all of their leaves to produce sugars. Any loss of leaves equates directly to reduction of sugar content in the melons. You can break off the melons that won’t ripen before the end of season, but don’t cut the vines or remove any leaves.
Have a volunteer Sugar Baby that came up. Used your advice on cutting the vine after the fruit and it works great. Mine took off after doing it. Thanks
Makes sense. Cut the vine after the last watermelon and move it to where you want it to be. I grew watermelons last year and they just went EVERYWHERE! Thanks for the vid.
fantastic video with great detail. thank you so much for sharing this valuable information. I grow sugar baby watermelons in southwest florida, and my last harvest was only 6 melons from 4 plants because I had no idea how to prune. I'll be sure to re-visit and re-watch this video again in the future. thanks again
Wow! a great video, it is informative and educational. I love watching your video because i learn and i enjoy. I love water melon and i have plant in our farm. You inspired me to plant more water melon in my farm. In this video you inspired to pursue my you tube channel. Thank you for sharing video, more power God bless us all Mabuhay po tayong lahat
Great video. I read what midjjeep posted. Yes, I think a better technique is pruning the fruits or flowers and keeping the vines. However, it does interfere with the compact nature and design of which can be more important to some people.
Cull slow growing watermelon, keep the leaves!! You can also encourage the root nodes to root under each leaf by burying the vine a little/cover the base of each leaf on the vines without fruit.
You'll have enough melons to go on a watermelon fast for 2 weeks if you eat a melon and a half a day. That is what I would do. Thanks for the video. It is very inspiring.
This is my first year growing crops in the ground and my water melon and cantaloupe are both all over the place. I will be applying this pruning method as soon as fruit arrives. I have jubilee watermelons but next year I want to do sugar babies and moon and stars.
Watermelon bears fruit on secondary branches. Generally you need to pinch out main shoot after 5 to 7th true leaves. This will encourage secondary branches to grow. Keep 3 vigorous secondary branches and remove all. Let these secondary branches grow to about 20 leaves. Cut all female flowers in the process. At 20+ leaves, let it bear a fruit. Once fruit is formed, remove all other fruits forming on that branch. Do not prune branches or leaves anymore. Let them grow. Each fruit requires about 50 healthy leaves for good quality fruits. Each plant you should only have 3 fruits. That's good quality 3 fruits.
when you say 'pinch out main shoot after 5 to 7 true leaves" do you mean prune it off? And if I cut off female flowers, how will I have any fruit? Wait for it to have 20 leaves before allowing female flowers? Thanks for any reply you have time for.
@@saddleridge4364 Yep prune. You remove female flowers forming within 20 leaves. Keep the first female flower AFTER 20 leaves are formed. Female flowers form every 7th leaves. So you are removing first 2 and keeping 3rd. I used to grow watermelons in my property. A lot of hard work.
This is my first year growing watermelon, cantaloupe and several different vegetables. I planted my melons from seeds the last week of May, in 2 raised garden beds. The vines have grown completely over the beds, overtaken half the yard and latched onto the grass. Would you have any suggestions for me? Do I try to remove any vines or leaves? I see fruit growing about as big as grapefruit or a little bigger. Any suggestions from you would be greatly appreciated! Oh, how I wish I came across this thread a month ago.
@@verlondakirchner2281 I think the best bet for you is to keep 2-3 watermelon fruits per plant and remove all other fruits. Make sure you only have 1 fruit per branch. This way you will get some quality watermelons. You do not need to remove leaves or vines. Once the fruits are growing they will stop setting more fruits as all energy goes to the fruits. Cantaloupes are different story all together. They bear fruits on tertiary branches. It sounds like you missed the timing of training the branches. Try to keep 5 to 6 fruits per plant. Like watermelon keep 1 fruit per branch . Cantaloupes are harder to train than watermelons. You need to pinch the main shoot after 5 to 7th true leaves. Keep just 2 secondary branches then pinch the tip after 5 to 7th true leaves. Keep 3 strong tertiary branches. Remove all other branches to this point. You will have 6 tertiary branched per plant. Which means 6 fruits per plant. You only keep 1 fruit per tertiary branch. Remove all other fruits on that branch. At this point you do not have to anything other than waiting for the fruits to ripe. I used to tape the branches with coloured tape so you know which one is which. So confusing otherwise. Try this next year. If your plants are vigorously growing with little fruits, it's more like there is too much nitrogen in the soil. Goodluck.
I just planted watermelon for the first time this year I live in San Diego where it’s in the 90s every day here, I just cut my first watermelon today it was not very red inside not alot of meat and all seeds what am I doing wrong
I respectfully disagree with this in most cases. You can actually take away from the plants focus on the melons by doing this. Doing so causes the plant to send signals to produce new runners ( vines) which than takes energy away from the fruit it's producing. Not to mention yes you're cutting down on fruit production as well as the male flowers needed to pollinate the females as each female requires several male flowers for a good even pollination. Especially in this variety being it's an icebox. What you can do to help the fruit along is to remove just some of the females, but not the vine itself. So if you have ones that aren't growing too good or have any kind of bruising/rot etc.. those are good ones to remove from the plant. Now you have quite a few growing so it's not a big deal, but not every plant will produce this heavily from one plant if you only allow one fruit per Vine. You have to take into consideration the zones a person lives in. Not everyone has that super long growing period and has enough time to wait for new vines to come out and produce flowers. It's quicker on established vines. A lot of people choose this variety for it's shorter growing period because of where they live. If you're down south more it's not an issue but if your more North it is. We got to think about the logic of this. At the end of the day it's one single plant with one main stem, and one set of roots. So whether the melons are growing from a few established vines or many different vines, all of their nutrients and energy are still coming from the same main stem and the same set of roots. If it's having to send those nutrients to several different Vines, that is going to take a lot more energy for the plant then it would be for it to just send those nutrients up those few established vines. I think sometimes people get in to gardening and yeah they might have done it for many years and they may be successful but at the end of the day when people start to try to change the way things are supposed to be by nature we need to take a step back. Things are created the way they are for a reason. The plants know what's best for them. and if they feel that they can't put as much energy into the melons they have they will just not set some of them. They will abandon them. And those are the ones that you could clip away.
@Cosmo Dawn Amen Sista! I agree whole heartedly!! I'm in the PNW & trying to grow 3 different kinds of Watermelon varieties (sugar baby is one of them) & I actually didn't know watermelon plants "were suppose to be pruned" until I ran across this video & then when I started reading comments (several similar to yours) I absolutely agree with all of ya! So thank you very much! I definitely won't be pruning my watermelon's! lol
I won't discount the value of nature's process, but we must understand that nature has a different 'goal' than us as gardeners. Nature's goal is to reproduce the plant, often meaning produce lots of seeds. Our goal is to harvest palatable fruit. While there may be overlap between the two, they are ultimately distinct goals, so nature's way may not be the optimum for our goals.
Every one have his own methods and if your method gives the result then everything is right, i think its nice yeald like in that small place. Doing realy similar by myself at the moment and hope can share nice yeald at the end using info given in this video
I love this method!!! I sent it to my brother who also loves gardening, and he loved it too!!! Tell me (if you know) is this true for all melons? Do all melon's only "fully" produce one fruit per vine? Because I would love to skip the trellis stuff and control the spread this way. Pumpkins too if possible. Great stuff LDS!
I came here to see if I should prune my watermelon and for advice on ridding the few ants I see.. I planted 1 crimson seedling in a 15 inch pot, y'all. It has 10 melons growing on it. The vines have taken over half of the space it's in. I was just trying something on a whim and now I'm in love with gardening. I didn't know if that's normal but I'm happy with it. I hand pollinate because there are no bees in my area. And it's growing in a greenhouse on my deck.
@@thegraciousgardener92 I watched this video to see about pruning. I did it and it seemed to have worked. The melons I have on vine have increased in size dramatically.
I'm gardening for the first time. I have about 5 watermelons growing. I had male flowers for about a week and a half and now there are none. Is this common? My plant has been growing for about 7 weeks.
Bummer. Hope you guys ate them both for dinner on a hot summer night. I just grew 6 plants and have about 6 -8 fruit growing but the vines are so long. Going to trim back. It's a bush. Ha ha
If you trellised them up the wall you would save even more space. I think having multiple melons per vine could work if you had optimum soil fertility and a long enough growing season but just like most things having just 1 will make it bigger. The tendril getting brown/falling off is certainly not a 100% bet of ripeness. Many times I've picked the fruit that way to only find it pink inside...if anyone knows of a 100% sure fire way to tell please say because i find it one of the more difficult things to determine in gardening, hollow sound doesn't always work either.
Z71Ranger Cool thanks for the story/advice, nice to think about them olden days eh? So yellow bottom, dullness and 2nd tendril brown that's 3 but you said 4 identifiers? Also what size pot would grow a full size melon?
Z71Ranger Ok I may try those and see how they work. Your discussion is about watermelons and helps folks like me and others so I'm not sure why LDSPrepper would have qualms with it. Leave it so others can benefit from your expertise.
Thank you....I didnt know to prune watermelons...Can't wait to do mine in Australia very soon.....common sense tells me to do the same with rockmelons.....correct?.....Love your videos.....Learning heaps....second year using woodchip method
My first time growing, kinda went in half blind but im letting them grow wildly but learning they take up a lot of space doing so. Need to prune but i think I've waited too long lol.
@@blaccsilverstaff5484 I've been buying Cree brand head lamps (more recently knock offs) for a decade for around $16/ea, given away dozens of them. Crucial characteristics--zoom beam, batt pack on back of head for balance and of course good Li batts.
That is really beautiful and sensible gardening. I am so impressed I had to subscribe. I am growing these and wondered how many plants you had in the box and how close together you recommend planting these out on the ground and in boxes like yours? Thanks and God bless.
First time growing watermelons. I have seedlings about 4" tall in a raised bed, I understand I need to wait for them to be about 6" tall correct? Do I transplant to give them more room to grow? My bed they are in is 4x4x8 shared with other developing produce. Only want to grow about 2-3. I have been hearing properly pollinating plz explain does it apply here? TIA I enjoyed your video. I/m in Southern Calif B9.
:( Pruning did work for me! I have 4 Sugar Baby Watermelon plants. Each plant had one melon about ping-pong size. I pruned one plant as described. Now, the pruned melon is the smallest of the four. The unpruned melons are about 6 inches diameter; the pruned melon, 5 inches.
After watching this i will cut some branches of my watermelon plants... I am growing yellow watermelon(inside red). I have only 12 in number of 300g to 750g each in my flowerpot.
very interesting thanks for that I had no idea you could prune watermelons. Why do you prune? is it better for the mellon or just a space problem. when growing peaches I know its best to have no more than 2 peaches per small branch for the first few years. Thanks for sharing. Scarlett Ps. how big are these watermelons going to get?
Though it might be required due to space limitations, pruning watermelon vines is not generally recommended and (I'm afraid) DOES NOT improve total yield, fruit size, or fruit quality. The greater the leaf to melon ratio, the better the fruit. With watermelons, you'd be better off letting the vines grow really long and allowing ONLY a melon (or 2) per plant to focus all that energy soaked-up by those sun-loving leaves. Also, consider growing vertically. (Yes, with watermelons!)
+Violaetor - He's 100% correct, my Dad just CUT OFF all the Flowers after 3 Fruits, LOL. He would leave 3 Per Plants, that is His Rule. Water and Soil are his main focus. Also, I don't know if He's correct, but He always said that the Leaves actually helps the Plant, if there are no Rain. It helps it to feed during short drought. But I guess in this case if you are Watering your Plants daily or 3X per week, then I guess you can CUT it off. If you depend on Nature then I guess He's right..... LEAVES are VERY Important to the Plants, to ALL PLANTS, not just Watermelons :D
If you don't prune, the plant will use too many vital nutrients continuing to grow vines instead of focusing on the fruit. That's the idea at least. Now, I have heard that it's best to limit to 4 melons per plant but I'm not sure that holds true with the sugar baby variety.
When did you film that? Thanks for the tips. I just might try something like this next time. I dont usually have issues with many melons on a vine but i do have issues with melons that come on late which dont make very well because the heat and humidity starts killing the plants. I also had poor pollination this year.. i need more flowers to get more bees to the garden. None the less that's a good amount of melons for a small bed. Make an update video on what it looks like when they are mature. Don't forget who you are hehe, you are David not Jacob =) Do you remember this guy? High Yield Tomato Plants: 50-80 lbs per Plant
I have never grown watermellon before. I only have about another month before first frost. I haven't seen any mellons yet. Growing season is short here where I live.
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Maybe watermelons are different but I planted Ambrosia cantaloupes last year and watched a million of these pruning videos and practiced pruning the best I could. I didn't get a single edible cantaloupe. This year I stuck the seeds in the ground, kept them fed and watered and did absolutely nothing else except cut off a few dead leaves. They ripened early and I'm now eating the best cantaloups I've ever had. Going to have to give some away!
It's 10 years after. And I'm enjoying reading all the disagreements in the comment section. So after reading all the experts in the comment section I still can't decide whether to prune or not to prune lol. We've never pruned before. I think I'll do a controlled experiment and prune half of each variety and find out for myself.
I think I watched this video for the first time last year and I knew this year I’d grow better watermelons by doing this and I have!! I’m so grateful I’ve found this video. Definitely kept diseases out of my garden because I didn’t have a lot of vines and my plants got the circulation it needed!
This is my second year growing watermelons. I grow them in 7 gallon pots with tomato cages as a trellis. I started by pruning all of the suckers (shoots) to a single vine. Also, i have pruned off all other female flowers after the first fruit was pollinated. 1 single melon per plant. I have about 8 plants total. Last year i did not prune at all and each plant had 3 to 4 melons growing simultaneously and they all stayed relatively small. Most did not ripen in time with my short growing season here. I will be attempting this new technique next spring, looks interesting.
This would be my 4th year growing watermelons. I have never touch the plants. Last year, each plant grew one big (15 lbs. average) water melons per plant without touching anything. Extremely sweet, my neighbors said.
"If you prepare, you shall not fear". Powerful! Thank you for an amazing video. I got some pruning to do!😁
I'm doing sq ft gardening and just planted watermelon for the first time. I love your videos, so much good info. Thank you.
Little baby watermelon is so cute :)
This is my first year gardening. My watermelon plants look great. I'm glad I watched this. I definitely have some pruning to do.
This was a very helpful video on pruning melon vines.
This video showed me how to make room in my garden for something else.Thank you, great video!!
Great video
Enjoyed your video. I talked to an old farmer in the early 70's about growing watermelons, and he gave me several tips that I have followed all these years. You mentioned one of them about the curl to know when they are ripe. I only grow seeded melons because they are sweeter than seedless.
Please do a video on pruning trellised melons, cukes, and squash.
I don't prune ANY of the vines because I want maximum leaves on the plant to increase sugar...I do however ensure that I get no more than 3 melons per plant so the energy is concentrated into 1 to 3 melons
When the plant have more leaves it produce more sugar?
@@AgriSmart1 yes it does. It's silly and poor to prune watermelons. Takeout those that won't make it as the plant will naturally do it. Nature
So the only thing you prune/trim is any watermelons that come up besides your 1-3 that you want to keep? Leave everything else?
@@albertayunda5521 Albert im not a huge watermelon grower so ill take your advice. So is your stance that you can prune if you want but the watermelon will be less sweet? I ask because my garden is not huge so I grow a lot of plants vertically. Will I be ok if I let some go, and prune as needed?
@@soonernation6749 that's a good question?
I read recently that pruning vines is not necessary and that the vines help sweeten the watermelon.
In those comercial fields in Georgia where they grow tons of watermelon, I have to wonder if they are out there pruning the vines.
Not exactly true. Energy needs to be on growing fruit not length
I'm from Georgia and I highly doubt somebody is out pruning plants in watermelon fields.
good tips on pruning, I like the advice on leaving the tendril on :-) nice, didn't know it was necessary to prune watermelon, thank you for the vid
Melons require all of their leaves to produce sugars. Any loss of leaves equates directly to reduction of sugar content in the melons. You can break off the melons that won’t ripen before the end of season, but don’t cut the vines or remove any leaves.
For some reason, I like this idea. My personal opinion, I am learning. Let nature take its course.
Cute when they're little
This is awesome! I'm going to give my watermelon some attention to see if pruning is necessary. Thank you for making this so clear to understand!
This will come in handy, thanks!
Wendi Phan
Have a volunteer Sugar Baby that came up. Used your advice on cutting the vine after the fruit and it works great. Mine took off after doing it. Thanks
Makes sense. Cut the vine after the last watermelon and move it to where you want it to be. I grew watermelons last year and they just went EVERYWHERE! Thanks for the vid.
This really works and if you want HUGE watermelons remove all but one, then enter it into the state fair.
Put
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fantastic video with great detail. thank you so much for sharing this valuable information. I grow sugar baby watermelons in southwest florida, and my last harvest was only 6 melons from 4 plants because I had no idea how to prune. I'll be sure to re-visit and re-watch this video again in the future. thanks again
do the vines grow roots where it makes contact with the soil? i would think more roots means more nutrient/water uptake.
That's exactly what I'm planting - Sugar Babies! Great content, nice vid!
THIS IS AN INSPIRATION TO US FARMERS SIR. THANKS
Awesome and educational video, thank you! I'll definitely be applying the education you so generously provided.
Congrats, that's a lot of melons! Thanks for sharing valuable info.
Wow! a great video, it is informative and educational. I love watching your video because i learn and i enjoy. I love water melon and i have plant in our farm. You inspired me to plant more water melon in my farm. In this video you inspired to pursue my you tube channel. Thank you for sharing video, more power God bless us all Mabuhay po tayong lahat
You are best gardening channel on YT. I learn so much from you. Thank you for all that you share. I am surprised that melons are not grown vertically.
thanks david i just both a 10.000 m2 land and iam looking into produce watermelon and i just lve learned so much with this video thanks again
Great video. I read what midjjeep posted. Yes, I think a better technique is pruning the fruits or flowers and keeping the vines. However, it does interfere with the compact nature and design of which can be more important to some people.
I could eat 20 watermelons in one day lol. The gutted bowls after cutting in half make great bowls to plant in ;)
What about 30 water melon
What about 30 water melon
Cull slow growing watermelon, keep the leaves!! You can also encourage the root nodes to root under each leaf by burying the vine a little/cover the base of each leaf on the vines without fruit.
I try to plant them in NZ and hope so much to be success. Thank you for sharing your tip. :)
LOVE your video!! … 🥰
Can the cuttings be rooted / propagated for planting in another area??- Thank you.
Yes #rickpilgrim6773
David, how many individual plants did you have in that box to get 25 melons? Thanks for the video. I'll will be pruning my watermelons in the future.
The Mitlieder Method says to space melons 2' apart. He said that was a 15' bed, so I would guess 7-8 plants/hills
I follow that you prune to get one melon per vine. Approximately how many vines do you get from a single plant?
Excellent video, very helpful, thanks for sharing!
I know this is a Old Video But thank you! Very educational. I'm new at growing🍉..
I’m growing some vertically in semi small pots so far I have 3 going strong
You'll have enough melons to go on a watermelon fast for 2 weeks if you eat a melon and a half a day. That is what I would do. Thanks for the video. It is very inspiring.
useful video, I got new experience about cutting of extra plant. thanks
This is my first year growing crops in the ground and my water melon and cantaloupe are both all over the place. I will be applying this pruning method as soon as fruit arrives. I have jubilee watermelons but next year I want to do sugar babies and moon and stars.
Wow 1.2 million views. Congratulations and thanks for the helpful information!
You do farming
Me? I have a large vegetable garden
@@dominiquecamara3089 You want any Jamaican assistant on your farm, watch a video on Agri. Smart #1 on you will here how a Jamaican talk
Great information, this will be really helpful since I am growing in such a small space.
Watermelon bears fruit on secondary branches.
Generally you need to pinch out main shoot after 5 to 7th true leaves. This will encourage secondary branches to grow.
Keep 3 vigorous secondary branches and remove all.
Let these secondary branches grow to about 20 leaves. Cut all female flowers in the process.
At 20+ leaves, let it bear a fruit. Once fruit is formed, remove all other fruits forming on that branch. Do not prune branches or leaves anymore. Let them grow.
Each fruit requires about 50 healthy leaves for good quality fruits.
Each plant you should only have 3 fruits.
That's good quality 3 fruits.
when you say 'pinch out main shoot after 5 to 7 true leaves" do you mean prune it off? And if I cut off female flowers, how will I have any fruit? Wait for it to have 20 leaves before allowing female flowers? Thanks for any reply you have time for.
@@saddleridge4364 Yep prune.
You remove female flowers forming within 20 leaves. Keep the first female flower AFTER 20 leaves are formed.
Female flowers form every 7th leaves. So you are removing first 2 and keeping 3rd.
I used to grow watermelons in my property. A lot of hard work.
Thank you for the very well explained process on growing and pruning watermelon. That’s on my 2021 growing list. Stay safe! 🇨🇦
This is my first year growing watermelon, cantaloupe and several different vegetables. I planted my melons from seeds the last week of May, in 2 raised garden beds. The vines have grown completely over the beds, overtaken half the yard and latched onto the grass. Would you have any suggestions for me? Do I try to remove any vines or leaves? I see fruit growing about as big as grapefruit or a little bigger. Any suggestions from you would be greatly appreciated! Oh, how I wish I came across this thread a month ago.
@@verlondakirchner2281 I think the best bet for you is to keep 2-3 watermelon fruits per plant and remove all other fruits. Make sure you only have 1 fruit per branch. This way you will get some quality watermelons. You do not need to remove leaves or vines. Once the fruits are growing they will stop setting more fruits as all energy goes to the fruits.
Cantaloupes are different story all together. They bear fruits on tertiary branches. It sounds like you missed the timing of training the branches. Try to keep 5 to 6 fruits per plant. Like watermelon keep 1 fruit per branch . Cantaloupes are harder to train than watermelons. You need to pinch the main shoot after 5 to 7th true leaves. Keep just 2 secondary branches then pinch the tip after 5 to 7th true leaves. Keep 3 strong tertiary branches. Remove all other branches to this point. You will have 6 tertiary branched per plant. Which means 6 fruits per plant. You only keep 1 fruit per tertiary branch. Remove all other fruits on that branch. At this point you do not have to anything other than waiting for the fruits to ripe. I used to tape the branches with coloured tape so you know which one is which. So confusing otherwise. Try this next year.
If your plants are vigorously growing with little fruits, it's more like there is too much nitrogen in the soil.
Goodluck.
I just planted watermelon for the first time this year I live in San Diego where it’s in the 90s every day here, I just cut my first watermelon today it was not very red inside not alot of meat and all seeds what am I doing wrong
Sounds like it wasnt ripe yet
Pruning will be a good strategy for me in Canada's shorter growing season. Growing sweet Siberian this year.
Plans change again Scaly Bark it is lol
Great idea for little space.
As usual You give great information. Thank You.
Thanks David
I respectfully disagree with this in most cases. You can actually take away from the plants focus on the melons by doing this. Doing so causes the plant to send signals to produce new runners ( vines) which than takes energy away from the fruit it's producing. Not to mention yes you're cutting down on fruit production as well as the male flowers needed to pollinate the females as each female requires several male flowers for a good even pollination. Especially in this variety being it's an icebox. What you can do to help the fruit along is to remove just some of the females, but not the vine itself. So if you have ones that aren't growing too good or have any kind of bruising/rot etc.. those are good ones to remove from the plant. Now you have quite a few growing so it's not a big deal, but not every plant will produce this heavily from one plant if you only allow one fruit per Vine. You have to take into consideration the zones a person lives in. Not everyone has that super long growing period and has enough time to wait for new vines to come out and produce flowers. It's quicker on established vines. A lot of people choose this variety for it's shorter growing period because of where they live. If you're down south more it's not an issue but if your more North it is. We got to think about the logic of this. At the end of the day it's one single plant with one main stem, and one set of roots. So whether the melons are growing from a few established vines or many different vines, all of their nutrients and energy are still coming from the same main stem and the same set of roots. If it's having to send those nutrients to several different Vines, that is going to take a lot more energy for the plant then it would be for it to just send those nutrients up those few established vines. I think sometimes people get in to gardening and yeah they might have done it for many years and they may be successful but at the end of the day when people start to try to change the way things are supposed to be by nature we need to take a step back. Things are created the way they are for a reason. The plants know what's best for them. and if they feel that they can't put as much energy into the melons they have they will just not set some of them. They will abandon them. And those are the ones that you could clip away.
Thanks. I wish there was a paragraph break (shift-enter) because difficult to read. All the best.
Nice post
@Cosmo Dawn
Amen Sista! I agree whole heartedly!!
I'm in the PNW & trying to grow 3 different kinds of Watermelon varieties (sugar baby is one of them) & I actually didn't know watermelon plants "were suppose to be pruned" until I ran across this video & then when I started reading comments (several similar to yours) I absolutely agree with all of ya! So thank you very much! I definitely won't be pruning my watermelon's! lol
I won't discount the value of nature's process, but we must understand that nature has a different 'goal' than us as gardeners. Nature's goal is to reproduce the plant, often meaning produce lots of seeds. Our goal is to harvest palatable fruit. While there may be overlap between the two, they are ultimately distinct goals, so nature's way may not be the optimum for our goals.
Every one have his own methods and if your method gives the result then everything is right, i think its nice yeald like in that small place. Doing realy similar by myself at the moment and hope can share nice yeald at the end using info given in this video
I've really learned a lot from your videos and thanks.
Thanks for the clear and precise tips!!
Thanks for information gives me knowledge. I will pland in my garden like this method. my garde is not so big.
Fantastic! Now I understand finally! Thanks!
New&Old h
I love this method!!! I sent it to my brother who also loves gardening, and he loved it too!!! Tell me (if you know) is this true for all melons? Do all melon's only "fully" produce one fruit per vine? Because I would love to skip the trellis stuff and control the spread this way. Pumpkins too if possible. Great stuff LDS!
+DragonflyArtz1 Thank you for asking. Yes, this works on all melons. I do the same on my pumpkins.
how many individual plants did you have in that box to get 25 melons same question than for Leonard , David :) (Patrick from Namibia)
Following
Answer your FOLLOWERS QUESTIONS!!!!!
@@mountaincreekhomestead looks like 4-5
I came here to see if I should prune my watermelon and for advice on ridding the few ants I see.. I planted 1 crimson seedling in a 15 inch pot, y'all. It has 10 melons growing on it. The vines have taken over half of the space it's in. I was just trying something on a whim and now I'm in love with gardening. I didn't know if that's normal but I'm happy with it. I hand pollinate because there are no bees in my area. And it's growing in a greenhouse on my deck.
@@thegraciousgardener92 I watched this video to see about pruning. I did it and it seemed to have worked. The melons I have on vine have increased in size dramatically.
I'm gardening for the first time. I have about 5 watermelons growing. I had male flowers for about a week and a half and now there are none. Is this common? My plant has been growing for about 7 weeks.
I would like to see harvest of these melons.
How is the solar holding up been a bit since i have been on
What kind of gardening method are you saying?
Thank you this was so helpful. Question, may I ask how long it took for your fruit to grow?
Ya
Thank You for the tips! We planted our first garden this year and only got 2 watermelons 🍉
Me too
Bummer. Hope you guys ate them both for dinner on a hot summer night. I just grew 6 plants and have about 6 -8 fruit growing but the vines are so long. Going to trim back. It's a bush. Ha ha
Thank you, that was very helpful
If you trellised them up the wall you would save even more space. I think having multiple melons per vine could work if you had optimum soil fertility and a long enough growing season but just like most things having just 1 will make it bigger. The tendril getting brown/falling off is certainly not a 100% bet of ripeness. Many times I've picked the fruit that way to only find it pink inside...if anyone knows of a 100% sure fire way to tell please say because i find it one of the more difficult things to determine in gardening, hollow sound doesn't always work either.
Z71Ranger Cool thanks for the story/advice, nice to think about them olden days eh? So yellow bottom, dullness and 2nd tendril brown that's 3 but you said 4 identifiers? Also what size pot would grow a full size melon?
Z71Ranger
Ok I may try those and see how they work. Your discussion is about watermelons and helps folks like me and others so I'm not sure why LDSPrepper would have qualms with it. Leave it so others can benefit from your expertise.
The only energy to grow the fruit comes from the leaves. If you want to cut if all but one melon, then Cut the 2nd melon only.
Thank you....I didnt know to prune watermelons...Can't wait to do mine in Australia very soon.....common sense tells me to do the same with rockmelons.....correct?.....Love your videos.....Learning heaps....second year using woodchip method
This is just what I needed. Thank you so so much!
Oh
Thanks very much
Watermelon growth after inoculation and then dry out and die fruit watermelon
+Aziz azizjasm hello aziz, what do you mean
My first time growing, kinda went in half blind but im letting them grow wildly but learning they take up a lot of space doing so. Need to prune but i think I've waited too long lol.
Exactly the same situation with mine!
Me too. We grow and learn. Next year will be better for us.
Very informative. Thanks!
how many plants planted in this 12ft raised bed
Good info brother my watermelons are looking spectacular!
th-cam.com/video/wtbcaWnybzs/w-d-xo.html
Excellent advice as I'm growing same type 1st time I've ever grown water melons--I'm going out in the dark right now to see what I should DO! :D
Lol i be in the garden at 1 2 3 4 am😂 high and wanna garden....all u need is a head lamp....and its not hot at night
@@blaccsilverstaff5484 Yeah I use the heck out of my headlamps, have a bunch of them. :D
@@Mrbfgray me too😂 like the best invention ever i have a Milwaukee an energizer and a coast. I bought my son 1 too and the wife
@@blaccsilverstaff5484 I've been buying Cree brand head lamps (more recently knock offs) for a decade for around $16/ea, given away dozens of them. Crucial characteristics--zoom beam, batt pack on back of head for balance and of course good Li batts.
@@Mrbfgray nice....😎
You are professionals in this field help me know more.
That is really beautiful and sensible gardening. I am so impressed I had to subscribe. I am growing these and wondered how many plants you had in the box and how close together you recommend planting these out on the ground and in boxes like yours? Thanks and God bless.
how many watermelon plants are there and how many watermelon do you get per plant approx?
That is awesome bro...thanks for the advice.
First time growing watermelons. I have seedlings about 4" tall in a raised bed, I understand I need to wait for them to be about 6" tall correct? Do I transplant to give them more room to grow? My bed they are in is 4x4x8 shared with other developing produce. Only want to grow about 2-3. I have been hearing properly pollinating plz explain does it apply here? TIA I enjoyed your video. I/m in Southern Calif B9.
:(
Pruning did work for me! I have 4 Sugar Baby Watermelon plants. Each plant had one melon about ping-pong size. I pruned one plant as described. Now, the pruned melon is the smallest of the four. The unpruned melons are about 6 inches diameter; the pruned melon, 5 inches.
Your job is great ❤
After watching this i will cut some branches of my watermelon plants...
I am growing yellow watermelon(inside red). I have only 12 in number of 300g to 750g each in my flowerpot.
Great job👍🌷 ..first time view your video ...have a nice day...🌹🌹
I always plant from seed about 10 plants an do prune them all and still end up with 30 plus fruit which I mostly give away.
What do you fertilize your melons with?
I add deluted fish emulsion once a week.
How many plants yielded the 24 melons?
Can u upload harvesting video of this as well?
They had moved before they were ready to be harvested.
very interesting thanks for that I had no idea you could prune watermelons.
Why do you prune? is it better for the mellon or just a space problem. when growing peaches I know its best to have no more than 2 peaches per small branch for the first few years.
Thanks for sharing.
Scarlett
Ps. how big are these watermelons going to get?
Though it might be required due to space limitations, pruning watermelon vines is not generally recommended and (I'm afraid) DOES NOT improve total yield, fruit size, or fruit quality. The greater the leaf to melon ratio, the better the fruit. With watermelons, you'd be better off letting the vines grow really long and allowing ONLY a melon (or 2) per plant to focus all that energy soaked-up by those sun-loving leaves.
Also, consider growing vertically. (Yes, with watermelons!)
@vic green. I don't seem to understand you clearly.How do you ensure ONLY a melon (or 2) per plant without pruning?
Funlola Ojelade Don't prune the vine length, instead, remove the unneeded/wanted female flowers.
ok Violaetor , thanks!
+Violaetor - He's 100% correct, my Dad just CUT OFF all the Flowers
after 3 Fruits, LOL. He would leave 3 Per Plants, that is His Rule.
Water and Soil are his main focus. Also, I don't know if He's correct, but He always said that the Leaves actually helps the Plant, if there are no Rain. It helps it to feed during short drought. But I guess in this case if you are Watering your Plants daily or 3X per week, then I guess you can CUT it off. If you depend on Nature then I guess He's right..... LEAVES are VERY Important to the Plants, to ALL PLANTS, not just Watermelons :D
If you don't prune, the plant will use too many vital nutrients continuing to grow vines instead of focusing on the fruit. That's the idea at least. Now, I have heard that it's best to limit to 4 melons per plant but I'm not sure that holds true with the sugar baby variety.
maybe its best to keep the vine of after the melon so it has leaves to feed the melon
Great video thank you for the information and for sharing
it was a stupid video and the information was false. better to let the plant grow as nature intended.
When did you film that?
Thanks for the tips. I just might try something like this next time. I dont usually have issues with many melons on a vine but i do have issues with melons that come on late which dont make very well because the heat and humidity starts killing the plants.
I also had poor pollination this year.. i need more flowers to get more bees to the garden.
None the less that's a good amount of melons for a small bed. Make an update video on what it looks like when they are mature.
Don't forget who you are hehe, you are David not Jacob =) Do you remember this guy? High Yield Tomato Plants: 50-80 lbs per Plant
I also want to know how many plants are in there
Just clip the excess melons. Leave the leaves. Leaves are kinda important for photosynthesis.
Great idea
Excellent, thanks a lot
very nice my friend ! good succès
Hi, was their any harvesting video ?
You like farming
Great video as always, cheers
I have never grown watermellon before. I only have about another month before first frost. I haven't seen any mellons yet. Growing season is short here where I live.
Using untreated boards I guess...how long will that box last do u think?
Maybe choose a particular wood...yellow pine? spruce???