Is This The Watermelon From Hell??

organicgardener (57)in #schoolofminnows • 6 years ago

One giant watermelon seems to prevent others from growing. What to do about it?

Watermelon Experiment

Last year was the first time I tried growing watermelons in my greenhouse.

To be honest, it wasn’t a real success. During the entire gardening season, we were able to grow two pieces of fruit, not bigger than a lemon. Not bad, I thought, because Belgium isn’t exactly the best place to grow watermelons.

They were delicious, though. They tasted better than any watermelon I had tasted before.

So I thought it was worth it to try it again.

A Big Surprise

One of this year’s plants has been growing really fast. These last couple of weeks, the weather has been better than ever. Loads of sunshine, and temperatures that are of the highest in 100 years.

What started with a beautiful yellow flower about 4 weeks ago, has now turned into a beautiful piece of fruit. At first, I was over the moon, but the more time goes by, the more I think the plant is in trouble.

Just to give you an idea, this is the size of the watermelons growing on my other plant:

Is It A Vampire?

The watermelon you can see in the picture at the top of this post is huge compared with the ones I grew last year.

In just a week, it actually DOUBLED in size...

It’s beautiful and all, but the thing that worries me is that it is the only one growing.

All other little flowers are turning into little, black, dead baby-fruits.
Every day, I see more leafs that have died.

Could it be that this monster melon takes away all the energy of the entire plant, litterally sucking up all nutrients?

I have been thinking about taking it off and give the plant a shot at growing more fruits.
I haven’t done so yet, since I’m not entirely sure how I can determine whether this particular watermelon is ripe. It would be a shame to waste it, it’s so unbelievably beautiful..

If it would rest on the soil, I’d know to look for a yellow spot, but this little bastard somehow found a way to stay like 1cm above the ground.

If there are some watermelon-experts around, I could really use some advice...

SCHOOL OF MINNOWS POST
If this post is older than 7 days,
please support by upvoting my latest post