Growing Baby Watermelon In Container Garden

Have you ever grown a baby watermelon plant in a container? I am doing it this summer.

Through photos and text, I wish to show you, over the whole growing season, how my watermelon plants are doing, and if I will eventually be successful in growing edible watermelons on my urban balcony.

It may sound crazy! One day I was passing a seasonal garden centre and saw some baby watermelon seedlings. I was thinking, why don't I grow them on my balcony? I love watermelons but it is always a trying job to bring a giant melon home. Besides, it takes forever to finish eating. Baby watermelon? Have you ever seen them at grocery stores? They are small, about the size of a cantaloupe. A melon can supposedly be consumed in one single eating session. Ha, one melon a day, always juicy, always fresh!

I came home with 4 seedlings.

I cannot profess to be a true gardener because I only have the space of a city dweller's balcony. However I always like to grow something and have the good luck in growing whatever they are. My balcony may just provide me with another arena to prove my agricultural or horticultural semi-green thumb this summer.

I have some big planters. So I just put the seedlings with other ornamental or herbal plants. However, I made sure that I didn't plant anything else, which might grow too aggressively in the same container.

I know watermelons are crawlers. Even though I don't have a field, the plants can crawl on the surface of my balcony. Besides, I will not want them to climb because I doubt the vines can support the comparatively heavy fruit.

As the plants are still in its early development period, I am using a balance 20-20-20 fertilizer, about once a week. When I rinse my milk container, the water goes to the containers too.

Soon after, I see flowers.

Watermelon flowers are very similar to other melon flowers, for instance, cucumber's. They are yellow and only open in the morning for a few hours.

A female flower carries a tiny baby melon even before it is open and pollinated, while a male flower is, oh well, just a flower.

After a flower is pollinated by a visiting insect, a tiny baby watermelon starts to form.

How long does it take for a pollinated female flower to form the fruit? I think it happens almost immediately.

At the begining, the female flower's base begins to swell, but the melon is unconspicuous. On the second day, the melon becomes the size of a pea with lots of silver hairs.

I have planted three melon plants in different containers to increase the chance for pollination. Unfortunately I had to pull the forth plant out because I don't have enough soil and space to support too many plants.

This is a close-up shot of a tiny tiny baby of the baby watermelon on the second or third day after it was pollinated.

Daniel J. Newmann from Hubpages Forum, thank you for your tip about the birds. You are right, I hope the visiting birds will leave my melons alone.

Oh well, maybe there will be enough to share?

When a melon is about one week old, it is of the size of a golf ball. See photo below.

Today I took another photo of the "Horticultural Corner" of my balcony. The biggest melon is of the size of a big egg, as you can see it at the bottom of the above photo. There are at least 5 smaller melons. The second biggest one is of the size of a golf ball now.

The second baby watermelon is quietly catching up in its size. Perhaps because I haven't disturbed it much?

The biggest melon is bigger than a jumbo egg, and the second one is just slightly smaller.

I was advised that watermelon plants should be generously watered because 90% of a watermelon is water. However I am making sure that the containers are sufficiently drained. Waterlogging should be avoided.

The two baby watermelons are progressing, although a bit too slow for my patience. It looks like that there are not enough soil and nutrition to support other smaller melons as they have all faded away. I have also trimmed the vines a bit so as to concentrate the supplies to the progressing melons.

The second melon (beside the tennis ball) is growing faster than the first. They are both about the size of a tennis ball which is also included in the photo for comparison. Will they ripe before autumn? Only time can tell.

The biggest surprise to me is that there is a third melon which has been hiding among the leaves! It is the biggest and most healthy.

The first melon has some deep skin damages which I have no clue of its cause. It's the smallest one now.

So the lesson is, leave the melons alone. If you disturb them, it will interfere with the growth.

At the end of August, after some heavy rain and humid and hot weather conditions, there were many severe powdery mildew spots on the leaves. One of the three plants was killed due to the mildew infection. Perhaps it was in too much shade.

I should have applied Sulphur Dust (which is fungicide and miticide) much earlier. It can be dusted directly on the leaves or mixed with water to spray the plants.

I hope it is not too late. The photo below shows what powdery mildew looks like. The bright white powder was from Sulphur Dust. The mildew color is kind of grey, not bright pure white.

It is September, the day is getting cooler and shorter, and the leaves are starting to change colors. What am I going to do with my baby watermelons? They are still as small as a fist. I have three from two plants.

My friend Carol urged me to cut one open. In her experience, some melons were ripe, sweet and juicy inside even though they appeared to be small.

So I did.

It was indeed ripe, sweet and juicy, with seeds and everything. It's funny that the seeds were of the normal size. But it tasted like a watermelon!

So incredible that the watermelons have ripened in such small sizes. Even though they were not big, they still taste like the real thing, of course, they are the real thing.

I have finally harvested my own watermelons. :)