- 23 minutes ago
A weak watermelon harvest usually comes down to timing, water, spacing, and pollination, and this guide breaks down the six mistakes that can ruin sweet summer fruit. From overwatering near ripening to missing pollination, crowding the vines, feeding too much nitrogen, or harvesting too early, each problem is explained in plain gardening terms.
The advice is rooted in old-fashioned home gardening methods: water deeply early on, then ease off as the melons mature; encourage bees or hand-pollinate if needed; use a raised planting mound with mulch; thin fruit so the vine can focus its energy; give plants full sun, heat, and room to spread; and pick only when the rind, underside, and tendril show the right signs. It also covers what to do in short, cool seasons, including choosing smaller fast-maturing varieties and starting seeds indoors.
Created for viewers searching for watermelon growing tips, garden troubleshooting, vegetable gardening advice, pollination help, and sweet fruit harvest guides. Ideal for anyone looking for how to grow watermelon, fix small or cracked melons, and improve summer garden results with simple, practical care.
The advice is rooted in old-fashioned home gardening methods: water deeply early on, then ease off as the melons mature; encourage bees or hand-pollinate if needed; use a raised planting mound with mulch; thin fruit so the vine can focus its energy; give plants full sun, heat, and room to spread; and pick only when the rind, underside, and tendril show the right signs. It also covers what to do in short, cool seasons, including choosing smaller fast-maturing varieties and starting seeds indoors.
Created for viewers searching for watermelon growing tips, garden troubleshooting, vegetable gardening advice, pollination help, and sweet fruit harvest guides. Ideal for anyone looking for how to grow watermelon, fix small or cracked melons, and improve summer garden results with simple, practical care.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You wait all summer for it. You give a watermelon more room and more time and more care than near
00:07anything else in the garden.
00:08A plant that sprawls clear across the patch and takes the whole season to make its fruit.
00:14And then it lets you down. The melons come small. Or they split open. Or they taste of nothing.
00:21Or worst of all, the vine flowers and flowers and never sets a single fruit at all.
00:27All that space and time and waiting for nothing.
00:33Well, today I am going to give you the six mistakes that ruin a watermelon crop, quick, one after another,
00:41and the old plain way to avoid each, so that all that room and all that waiting pays off in
00:49great, sweet, heavy melons come the end of summer.
00:53I am Elias, and the watermelon asks more of a garden than most crops, so it is worth doing right.
01:01And every one of these six is a thing folk get wrong without ever knowing it was the cause.
01:07So keep up and let me give them to you.
01:11Quick word before I go further.
01:13The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
01:19I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:24The book is the long version. If you want it, it is there. I will not mention it again.
01:31My grandfather grew the sweetest watermelons in the county, and folk always asked his secret, and he would just smile
01:39and say it was mostly in knowing when to leave them alone.
01:43He watered them hard and faithful when they were young and sprawling, and then, when the melons were near full,
01:51he all but stopped, let the patch go dry in the late summer heat, and that, he swore, was what
01:58put the sugar in them.
01:59Everyone else drowned theirs to the end and wondered why they were bland.
02:04So let me hand you his knowing and the rest of it.
02:08The first mistake is over-watering, but hear me, for it is a particular kind at a particular time.
02:16Early on, a young watermelon is thirsty and wants plenty, so this is not about then.
02:22It is about the end, when the melon has grown near its full size and is coming ripe.
02:28At that point, counter to all scents, you must ease off the water.
02:34And here is why. Two good reasons.
02:37First, a melon at full size is not going to grow much bigger.
02:42So if you keep pumping water into it, that water swells the flesh against a skin that has stopped growing,
02:48and it splits the melon right open, ruined.
02:51And second, and this is the one folk never know, all that water waters down the sweetness.
02:58For the sweet of a watermelon is the sugar concentrated in its flesh, and the more water you pour in
03:05at the end, the more you dilute that sugar.
03:07So you get a big, watery, bland melon instead of a sweet one.
03:12So as your melon comes ripe, cut the water back, even let it go a little dry, and you will
03:18get a sweeter, sounder melon.
03:21Ease off at the end, and the flavor concentrates.
03:24The second mistake is neglecting the pollination, and this is the great cause of that heartbreak, the little fruit that
03:32starts to form and then shrivels and rots off small before it grows.
03:38Folk think the plant is sick, but it is not.
03:40That shriveled little fruit was simply never pollinated.
03:44For the watermelon, like the squash and the cucumber, makes two kinds of flowers, the male and the female, and
03:52only the female makes a melon, and she must get pollen carried from a male flower to set her fruit,
03:58or she withers.
04:00So if your little melons keep shriveling, it is poor pollination, too few bees to carry the pollen.
04:06And the answer is two ways.
04:09The sure way is to do it yourself.
04:11When you see a male flower open, take a little soft brush, or pluck the male flower itself, and dab
04:18its pollen into the center of the female flowers, the ones with the tiny melon already behind the bloom, and
04:25set them by your own hand.
04:27But the better way, the old way, is to keep the garden full of flowers, sunflowers and the like, all
04:35about your melon patch,
04:36to draw the bees in plenty, and let them do the pollinating for you as they ought.
04:42Keep the bees coming, and your melons set themselves.
04:45The third mistake is right there in the name, and it is underwatering, early on.
04:52Watermelon.
04:53It is 90 parts water, that fruit, and to throw out all those long, sprawling vines and great leaves, and
05:00then fill those heavy melons, it needs a tremendous drink, especially early in its growing.
05:07Starve it of water early, and it gets off to a poor, slow start it never recovers from.
05:13Now here is the old trick to water it right, and it is the planting mound.
05:19Instead of planting on the flat, you heap up a low mound of soil, and in the top of that
05:25mound, you press down a hollow, a little basin or crater, like a small volcano with a dished top.
05:32And you plant your seeds in that dished hollow, and mulch the hollow with a bit of straw.
05:38And then when you water, the water pools in that basin, right over the roots, and soaks straight down to
05:45them, instead of running off.
05:47And the mulch holds it there, so every drop goes to the plant.
05:52It waters deep and wastes nothing, and keeps that thirsty young plant well drenched through its hungry early growth.
06:00Plant in a mounded basin, mulch it, and water into the crater.
06:06And a related old care, once the melons are growing, slip something dry beneath each melon where it rests on
06:13the ground, a flat board, a shingle, a bed of straw, a tile, to lift it off the bare damp
06:20earth.
06:21For a heavy melon, lying on wet soil for weeks, will often rot on its underside, just as it ripens,
06:29all your waiting spoiled at the last.
06:31But set it up on a dry board, and the underside stays sound, and it ripens clean.
06:38So mound and mulch and water the crater, and set your melons up dry as they grow.
06:44The fourth mistake is letting the vine carry too many melons, which gives you a lot of little ones, instead
06:51of a few great ones.
06:53Here is the thing. A vine has only so much strength to pour into its fruit.
06:59And if it is trying to feed six or eight melons, it feeds them all poorly, and they all stay
07:05small.
07:06But let it feed just two or three, and it pours everything into those, and they grow great, and heavy,
07:12and sweet.
07:13So you thin them. Once the little melons have set, you pick the best two or three on a big
07:19melon vine,
07:20up to four on a small melon kind, and pinch off the rest while they are tiny.
07:26Fewer melons, bigger melons, the same old truth we meet in near every fruit there is.
07:33Now do the thinning once the little melons are set, and you can see which are the strongest and best
07:38placed,
07:39keeping those and pinching the runts and the latecomers, rather than guessing too early.
07:45And there is another good reason to keep the number down, besides size.
07:49That a vine straining to ripen a great crowd of melons will often not ripen any of them well before
07:56the season ends,
07:57where a vine with two or three brings those to full sweet ripeness in good time.
08:03So thin for ripeness as much as for size.
08:07And the same goes for the plants themselves. Do not crowd them.
08:11For watermelon is planted a few to a mound, two or three plants to a mound, and no more.
08:17And the mounds set a good four to six feet apart, for these are sprawling giants,
08:23and crowded together they choke and shade and starve one another.
08:28Give them room, and few fruit each, and you get the great melons.
08:33The fifth mistake is the worst of all, when the vine grows and grows and flowers, but never sets any
08:40fruit at all.
08:41All vine and no melon. And there are three honest causes, so let me give you each.
08:48The first, and commonest for a beginner, is planting out of season, or with too little sun.
08:53The watermelon is the very soul of high summer. It wants a long, hot season, and a great deal of
09:01sun.
09:01Eight full hours a day, and more. And heat. Real heat.
09:06Try to grow it in a cool, short season, or a shady spot, and it will sprawl and flower, but
09:13never make a melon.
09:14For it has not the sun and warmth and time it needs.
09:18The second cause is just that. Cold.
09:21For a watermelon wants real warmth, up in the 70s and 80s, to set and grow its fruit.
09:28And in a cold spell, it sulks and sets nothing.
09:32And the third cause folk never guess. Too much rich nitrogen feeding.
09:37For nitrogen is the food of leaf and vine, and a watermelon early on wants plenty of it to throw
09:44out all that growth.
09:45But if you keep pouring on the rich nitrogen feed once it should be fruiting,
09:50it just keeps making more and more lush leaf and vine, and never turns to flowering.
09:56All green and no fruit.
09:59So here is the old plain rule of feeding it. Feed for the leaf early, and for the fruit later.
10:05Early, when it is building its vines, a good rich feeding suits it.
10:10But once it should be flowering and fruiting, you ease off the leafy nitrogen and give it instead what feeds
10:17fruit.
10:18A bit of wood ash for the potash. Some old bone or rock dust for the phosphorus.
10:23The things that turn a plant from leafing to fruiting. Feed for leaf early, for fruit later, and give it
10:31sun and heat and a long season, and it will set.
10:34And that brings up the honest hard truth for those of you in the cold short season country.
10:40For I'll not pretend the watermelon is easy for everyone. It truly does want that long hot summer, and if
10:48yours is short and cool,
10:50a great slow watermelon may never ripen for you at all. And that is the plain fact.
10:56But do not give up, for here is the answer. Choose the small, fast kinds, the little icebox melons bred
11:04to ripen quick in a shorter season,
11:07not the great slow giants, and start them indoors early in the warm to steal a head start on your
11:14season,
11:14and set them out in your very sunniest, warmest spot against a south wall that gathers heat.
11:21The small, fast kinds well started are how the cold country folk grow watermelon, and it is honest and it
11:29works,
11:30where waiting on a great slow melon would only break your heart.
11:33The sixth and last is harvesting wrong, picking it too early or too late.
11:39For a watermelon does not ripen a bit more once you pull it, so you must catch it just right.
11:46Now I have given you the full reading of a ripe melon in another talk, so I will not go
11:51over all of it again here.
11:53But the quick of it is these signs together. The underside, where it sits on the ground, turns from white
12:00to a rich, creamy yellow.
12:02The skin overall goes from shiny to dull. It sounds hollow and deep when you thump it,
12:08and the little curly tendril on the vine nearest the melon dries up brown.
12:13When those signs come together, it is ripe, and not before.
12:18Learn those signs, and you will pick it at its peak, all that season's waiting rewarded in one perfect sweet
12:26melon.
12:27Now let me say a small plain word, not a who-prophets sermon, for a watermelon is no one's scheme.
12:34But notice that not one of these six wanted a thing bought to fix it.
12:39Easing the water, keeping bees for the pollination, a mounded basin to water right, thinning to a few fruit,
12:47feeding for leaf, then fruit, and giving sun and warmth, and picking at the right sign.
12:53All knowing and timing, nothing purchased.
12:56There is a whole trade in selling folk melon fertilizers and boosters and this and that,
13:02when the melon wanted only to be watered right at the right times, pollinated, given room and sun,
13:08and not overfed with the wrong food at the wrong time.
13:12So folk come to think a poor melon crop wants some bought fix when it wants understanding.
13:19That old understanding of what a melon truly needs, and when, is worth more than any bottle.
13:25So there are the six mistakes that ruin a watermelon, and their fixes.
13:30Ease off the water as it ripens, or split it and dilute its sweetness.
13:35Keep the bees for pollination, or set the fruit by hand, so your little melons do not shrivel.
13:41Plant in a mulched, mounded basin, and water it deep and well early.
13:46Thin to two or three fruit a vine, and give the sprawling plants room.
13:52Give it sun and heat and a long season, and feed it for leaf early and fruit later, not endless
13:59nitrogen.
14:00And pick it at the right signs, not too early nor too late.
14:05Do these, and all that room and all that summer's waiting will pay you back in great sweet heavy melons.
14:12Now I want to hear from you.
14:14Tell me down below whether your watermelons have ever shriveled off small, or split open, or come out bland.
14:21For now you will know which mistake was behind it.
14:24And tell me your county, and how long and hot your summers run.
14:28For the watermelon lives or dies by that, and it decides whether you want the great slow melons, or the
14:35little fast ones.
14:36I read every one.
14:38Next time, I want to show you the saving of your own watermelon seed from your best melon, so that
14:44from one fine sweet melon, you grow all next year's crop for free.
14:49And in time, a melon grown to suit your own ground.
14:53The old people grew their watermelons by understanding the plant's whole long summer, watering it right at each stage, keeping
15:01the bees, giving it room and sun, and feeding it for what it was doing at the time, and so
15:07grew great sweet melons with nothing bought but a pinch of seed.
15:11There is a quiet wisdom in that, in giving a plant the right thing at the right moment across a
15:17whole season, rather than the same thing always, or some bought fix at the end.
15:23The people who built this country with their hands knew that, and we are only just starting to remember it.
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