My simple home garden

Hydroponic watermelon from seed to fruit

Read original blog post

Page: 1

User

Post

11:33 pm
November 21, 2009

Tom

Admin

posts 56

This page is a timeline of events while growing a hydroponic watermelon from seed. I am hoping that people will find it useful. When I am researching a plant, I often try to find images of a plant at a certain point during its growth but often have a lot of trouble finding the right image. Click the category link to scroll through my posts and see the pictures I took.

I believe the plant is a sugar baby watermelon but I can't find the packet and didn't keep track.

Started on 7/07/2009 and harvesting the first fruit on 11/29/2009. The growing system is an home made drip system with parts I bought at home depot. The lights I use are 1000W MH with a light cycle of 12 hours on, 12 off. I used General Hydroponics Flora Nova grow for my nutrient solution mixed at 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. When polinating I used a q-tip that I pulled a little to make a wick.

Timeline
Day 1 July 7, 2009 – Planted seed
Day 5 July 12, 2009 – Seed sprouted
Day 15 July 22, 2009 – First true leaves emerge
Day 34 August 10, 2009 – First flower
Day 49 August 25, 2009 – Polinated (but didn't take)
Day 53 August 29, 2009 – First day of my suspected spider mite problem (which was kept under control with pesticides.)
Day 71 September 16, 2009 – Polinated second flower (but didn't take)
Day 73 September 18, 2009 – Polinated third flower (finally took)
Day 137 November 21,2009 – First fruit harvested

See Hydroponic watermelon for the daily comments and pictures.

Read original blog post

10:21 am
August 31, 2010

schnyde

Sacramento

New Member

posts 1

I can tell you that I had much better results in growing Jubilee Watermelons.

I planted these in an Ebb & Flow system (7 plants) using Medium sized pots with Hydrolite on the bottom 1/4, then a mix of 1 part Pearlite to 2 parts Vermiculite. I water these 4 times a day using GH liquid fertilizers, mixed per instructions. I also put in 2 tsp per gallon Hydrogen Peroxide to keep the algae off.

Some of this success is geographic location, I live in a more arid climate, to which, these melons seem to enjoy. I am also growing Broccoli and Squash in the same tub. This is all outdoors, BTW…

By day 20, I had the small melons start to form on the vines, which were about 3-4' long. By day 35, I had melons that were about 1/3 of the size that I have seen on the fruit stands. Great! Now, I am at day 50, and encountered an issue. I have more melons at 1/3 of the expected grow size, but none of these are getting any larger. The vines are at about 5-7' now, and I am considering cutting them down to 5' to promote melon growth over vine growth.

I have pictures of all of this, but need to make my website and upload them, less there is a way to simply attach them as a file to a post…. ?

–Scott

10:49 pm
September 1, 2010

Tom

Admin

posts 56

Maybe they needed more food. Next time when they start to grow up the concentration of nutrients. I found my watermeon grew a bit smaller as well and thats what I was told to do.

Page: 1