The Problem with Watermelon

Growing a ~50 foot row of watermelons has a serious drawback. Besides the horrible job of weeding the damned things, you have to figure out what to do with about 40 watermelons. And they all ripen at the same time.

Of course it's impossible to eat so many melons in a one month time frame. So this year, we interspersed regular (charleston grey) watermelons with some tiny (sugar pea) 'icebox' type watermelons so we'd have a mix of big and small to satisfy any family in town. That way, we could give them away to everyone, regardless of family size. A good side-effect was that those tiny watermelons produce, I'm guessing, three melons per vine. We've got well over a hundred watermelons sucking up the sun right now, all within a week of being ripe. Check out the difference in the size of the finished products:


Quite a difference! The little ones are a bit hard to find because of the stupid way I planted them among the regular sized watermelons, but they are exceptionally flavorful, and have just a tiny rind.

So what should you grow? Big ones or little ones? The big ones definitely give more eatable watermelon per square foot, but the little ones are pretty cool. Plus, you can grow the little icebox watermelons in a 10 gallon pot, if you're willing to water them every day. It's up to you!