Watermelon plants are a great summer treat at the dinner table. Simply cut the melon in half and grab a spoon!
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I’m New: Watermelon Grow Bag Information
Congratulations on your new watermelon plant! With a grow bag setup, growing watermelons is a breeze. Here’s the quick and dirty “need to know” information to be successful with your watermelon grow bag:
Where’s The Source Of Water?
Locate your water source? Do you have a water spigot located within a close proximity to the grow bag? Grow bags can be watered quickly (less than 5 seconds per bag), but they need water on a consistent basis. When the summer heat arrives, they’ll need water every day.
Here are a couple of easy methods for determining if your melon plant needs water:
- Use the finger method: Insert you finger into the soil. If soil sticks to your finger, your plant is good to go and doesn’t need any water. If your finger comes out clean and dry, you’ll need to add water.
- Lift and feel: Gently tilt the bag and feel the bottom. If the bottom of the bag is dry, it needs water immediately. The bottom of the bag should never be completely dry.
Watermelon Plants
Watermelon plants need lots of water! When the temperatures stay above 80F, they’ll need to be thoroughly watered daily. Once melons are set and successfully pollinated, they grow quickly and can grow from a couple inches to full grown within two to three weeks (as long as they receive ample water).
TIP: Water your melon plants before the heat of the day.
Watermelon plants are monoecious plants. This means the male and female reproductive parts are on separate flowers located on the same plant. Because of this setup, it requires pollinators (i.e. honey bees or bumble bees) to transfer pollen from the male flower to the female flower.
*Your plant’s flowers were hand pollinated before you purchased it to guarantee success.
If you start to see baby melons fall off the plant, it probably means they failed to pollinate. If this happens, feel free to contact us if you need help pollinating by hand. The plant will continue to grow vines and set fruit throughout the rest of the warmer months.
Harvesting
There are a few different ways to tell when a watermelon is ripe enough to harvest. Your plant variety “Mini Love” will be 4-6” in diameter when fully grown.
Ground Contact Spot
If the fruit has been sitting on the ground, there will be a colored patch where the watermelon has been in contact with the ground. This spot will turn from a yellow to a tan color when ripe.
Tendril Indication
Tendrils are the green curly-cue anchors the plant uses to support itself. Look for the one closest to the plant. When this tendril turns from green to brown, it indicates the melon is ready to harvest. See the photos below of a normal tendril and one indicating a ripe melon.
Sound
Some growers use sound for an indicator. However, this is more difficult on the smaller watermelons and is subjective. We suggest using the first two methods.