How to Grow Seedless Watermelon in a Backyard Garden
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- čas přidán 1. 03. 2022
- How do you plant a seedless watermelon if they don't have any seeds? It's quite technical, but we'll try to explain it as simply as we can. We'll also tell you how you can grow seedless watermelons in your backyard garden. We'll share our watermelon growing tips and tricks for seedless watermelons, what we did wrong last year, and how we plan on improving our techniques this year.
We'll also be planting some lettuce transplants that have been in the greenhouse about two weeks too long. We have several of our favorite varieties in addition to a couple new lettuce varieties that we haven't tried. Join us as we plant leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, butterhead lettuce, and even some Turkish lettuce!
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The former Physics Major in me(prior to deciding to go into Accounting) is over here LIVING for the in depth description of botany and specifically plant seedling genetics. Job very well done Travis.
-From one science nerd to another
Preciate it!
Yeah nothing beats a ripe seedless watermelon... OMG soooo delicious!! Way better than the best seeded watermelon I've ever had!
Best seedless is Black Diamond I think.
Excellent presentation, Travis. You’d be an exceptional teacher. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I enjoyed as always!
I was a teacher in my 20s. I still consider myself a teacher, just a different set of "students." lol
And the students you have NOW are here because we WANT to be, not because we HAVE to be. 🤣👍😁
I'm with you Sondra 💯
thanks for all the tips gonna try some seedless this year, I'm gonna wait to see how yours come up before I plant lol.🤣🤣🤣
Hopefully our tips work well for us. If not, we'll go back to the drawing board.
Travis, a way to scarify your seeds a lot faster is to clamp a piece of course sandpaper to a table (or clipboard) and then drag the end of the seed over the sandpaper to the desired depth. Obviously, you are already finished for 2022, but good luck for 2023. Best wishes from Kate in Olympia, WA
Thanks for the tip Kate!
Great explanation of how to create a seed for a seedless melon & in minimal time! You’re a natural teacher! Extremely well done! I even understand it all. Thanks!
Thanks so much!
Titus may be dirty but he comes across as one happy little fellow. When I was young (I'm getting old now), you could tell how much fun I got into by how dirty I was at the end of the day. Ahhhh...those were the days. Nice vid, Travis. God bless you and your family. Stay safe.
Travis! You did such a great job explaining the process for creating seedless watermelons! I love understanding how things work, and I appreciate the time you put into explaining it. Admittedly, I had to “rewind” a couple of times to get it to stick in my head, but I love it! Great job!
Glad it was helpful!
I'll live vicariously through you with the watermelons. I grew some sugar baby watermelons last year on a trellis. The one that I actually tried was spot on. Got those seeds from CaliKim. Once the indoctrination is gone and schools actually begin, you'd probably be the best educational teacher for reproduction (of course for plants). Lol. Thank you so much for sharing your okree seeds. Mine arrived yesterday with the shirt. Love the pocket! Just got my perlite yesterday also, Yikes! Not sure how I'm going to store 4 cubic feet of it. Take care my friends!
That bag of perlite should last you a long time. We do a lot of seed starting and haven't even put a dent in ours. Glad you the okree and shirt got there safely!
Hey Travis! Great explanation on how they get seeds for a seedless watermelon. I always wondered how that was done. Everything in the garden is looking good and hopefully the lettuce has time to grow and mature before the heat gets to them. If you ever want to try a more heat tolerant variety, go with Jericho lettuce. It was developed in Israel and I have grown it for several years. It is a leaf type with great flavor. Looking forward to Friday’s video.
Thanks for the tip on the Jericho lettuce. Might have to try that one this next fall.
Hi, Tim. Where do you get seeds for the Jericho lettuce? Best wishes from Kate in Olympia, WA
@@TalkingThreadsMedia Hi Kate - I ordered my Jericho seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Every year I let a few plants bolt and go to seed to plant the following year.
Thank you!
@@TalkingThreadsMedia Johnny's and Everwilde also have them.
Thank you so much for the visual science lesson on watermelon seeds! Fantastically easy to understand now!👍🏻
You're very welcome!
Great idea with the cling wrap.. Thanks! 😉
You’re welcome 😊
Finally found your new channel the hoss show is not the same without you two together
So glad you finally found us!
Great explanation on the seedless watermelon 🍉... I looked around to see if I was in Biology class again🥱 🤣!!! Mr. Key...✌
Mark B., right????!!!! But this one has my full attention, except I keep rewinding to commit to memory!
Our pleasure!
Very informative! Thank you, it is good to know this.
Good to know the info about seedless watermelons I ordered some seeds and plan on trying it this year we'll see how it goes.
Good luck!
Travis, I have been growing seeds for over 50 years, and I still do not think of myself as a master. I will try to grow any seed I get a hold of. I am still just a novice.
Oh and I had to come back and edit but alfalfa pellets mixed into the soil before planting Cheerokee Wax beans, I have never gotten production as I have this year. I also have never prepared the soil with alfalfa pellets until this year, I promise I will never again plant beans without alfalfa pellets in the soil first.
Great to hear about the alfalfa pellets. Glad they're working well for you.
I had a yellow seedless for the first time last year. It was absolutely delicious! Honey flavor; Round, but perfect size. Got that at a nursery/farmer food stand. The problem with the store ones is it's a crapshoot finding a good one. Though I know what to look for. Then you need refrigerator space to store it.
I feel like I learned a lot once again. I especially enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm of your boys. I’m sure they will carry on the torch!
I hope so!
Train your child in the right way and when they get older even if they go astray they will always remember that which you taught them and they will come back to your teaching. You are doing a great job Travis.
Thank you Doc Travis, you're pretty smart
Awesome video with an excellent explanation! Mucho Gracias! Thanks 👍🏻🍉🤞🏻
Glad it was helpful!
another great video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I over did it with watermelon last year lol I’m sitting this year out… just sweet corn this year
No such thing as overdoing it with watermelon. lol
Very interesting to learn about!
Glad you think so!
I'm going to try the one's you grew last year, already ordered them. Seen your video come up and was like... Yay I'm ready!! LOL You changed it up on us this year LOL I think I'm going to wait to see how yours come up first. Then set up my starter trays with 1. light potting mix 2. not going to over water 3. nick (scarify) the seeds and 4. set my thermostat to 85 👍🏼✌🏼🍉🍉 Have a great night Travis Ty
I was going to use the Orange Crunch as my pollenizer this year, but couldn't find any seeds when I was ordering. That's why I went with the Tendersweet Orange instead.
This was great.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
I tried Summer Breeze Seedless last year, and none germinate. Hoss sent me Tailgate seedless seeds and 40% germinated. Better than none. All my seeded watermelon germinated so, I did get a few seedless fruits. They were fun to grow. I like trying new things. I do have a recommendation. Try to get a pollinator that looks different than the seedless type. That way as the vines get intertwined together it's easy to tell which fruits are seedless or seeded. Great show today Travis. Thank you.
Completely agree about having a different looking pollenizer. The Tendersweet Orange we're using is supposed to be an elongated watermelon while the Orange Crisp is round.
great job
Thanks Mike!
I'm old mate good👍 job 👍
I sand the seeds just a little for quicker germination.
Wow!!
Travis, you share so much great info. A silly question is, how far apart can you plant the 2 types of watermelon seeds, for good pollination ? Have a great watermelon year.... 🍉🍉
I plant my watermelon transplants on a 2' spacing along the row, and usually put the rows 5' apart or so.
I was enjoying the warmth and thinking about no more frosts too, checked the weather and it looked nice out to the 10-day, I usually plant a small sampling early, usually flowers and hold the tender vegetable seedlings back. But as with anything weather I checked again today and we have another arctic Canadian blast pushing deep into the south on the models for the 10th and 11th with it reaching the Atlantic on the 12th. Anything can change between then and now of course applies.
My extended forecast is showing a 36 degree night on March 12th. I'm getting antsy too!
Use aspirin every time you germinate seeds. Instead of using the hose, you’ll have to use some sort of picture or bucket to make your aspirin into the water. Aspirin is a root growth hormone made from Willowbark. If you have access to a willow tree you can use the bark or leaves off of the tree. I just use aspirin like five per gallon. That will make your plants really strong. I use it on everything. I also add aspirin like every two weeks. It stimulates growth and makes your leaves are in stocks really strong. It’s sort of a key later and Help your plant uptake the fertilizers and it makes your plants immune system overreact so it feels like it’s being attacked and that’s why it makes it stems and leaves so tough. If you don’t want to use it throughout your season, at least use it for your germination. If you want, you can try it on a few seeds and see what it does for you.
Totally unrelated but I just recently watched your fig tour video. Nice collection but you don’t have any Col de Dame’s. You have to have at least one variety. I would recommend Col de Dame Blanc. They are the best figs out there. You will be blown away by the taste. Please give us another tour in mid to late summer when everything is popping.
I don't have any of those, but I wouldn't mind having one.
I am horrible at growing watermelons... luckily for me, there are thousands, yes thousands of acres of them all around me, so I'm good, I can pick them up just about anywhere. :)
There's no shortage around here either. But there's just something about having a pile of them under the shade tree whenever you want to eat them.
Tryed seedless last year ended up with only pollinators try try again thanks for the advice will wait till see how yours germinate growing 7b Arkansas so don't need to start mine yet would like to buy some of your figs when you get plant permits thanks again
Hope you have better luck this year!
I planted those TenderSweets this year. Mine are going nuts and I probably needed 12’ rows. I do have mine on drip irrigation and feeding them a little bat guano.
They're pretty good. Hope you enjoy them!
Sadly, I haven't the garden space for watermelon, but I enjoy watching yous. I also live just up the road from the watermelon capitol of the world, so, I'm good.
Watermelons everywhere in south GA and FL!
So, when a tetraploid mommy (who's been hitting the colchicine) and a diploid daddy love each other very much, the stork brings them some little seedless watermelon babies.
Pretty much, yeah!
got the little watermelon hoss sells seems like the week times is the same for our tam toes and peppers cant Harley wait... emmmmm getting close a few months mabey
Hope they do well for you!
Hey Travis you almost guessed the secret sauce that I'm going to make for my tomatoes. I've decided to send you half of the secret sauce recipe. I got it in the mail today you should get it shortly. Maybe you could try your own experiment with the secret sauce for the biggest Mater. I found some watermelon seeds this year by the name of Georgia rattlesnake which I plan on growing I typically have the best results with my Charleston greys. But I guess I will try to get me some seedless watermelon seeds and see if I can do something great. Maybe once you get your secret sauce in the mail you can go look back and see if you can figure out the riddle. LOL good luck with your watermelons happy gardening sir. I'll give you a hint on the other half of the secret sauce it's made by dr. Jim
If you're already growing watermelons, won't hurt to try a few seedless ones in the plot. Your Rattlesnakes will taste the same with or without the presence of the seedless watermelon in the row. Can't wait to figure out this whole secret sauce thing!
It's hard to beat the sugar content in a fiesta or sangria watermelon
Never tried Fiesta, but Sangria is definitely a good one!
So if i have black diamond watermelon i need a seeded variety to help polinate
I started a pack each of squash and zucchini in the ground my thinking is if the weather holds out I win if it freezes then I just lost a couple dollars in seeds and I still have to plant at the time I would anyway
Always worth taking that chance!
I bought seedless this year for the first time and now I'm nervous. Going to try your tips. Miss you on the row by row show explaining stuff like this but at least you are still making great videos. Ps does your wife like the mustace?
Don't be nervous. But don't get your hopes up either. Just consider it a learning opportunity. The wife does like the mustache.
I bought seeds for the orange krunch because of your review.👍😁🍉 will I need a pollinator? I've heard a couple you tubers like a strawberry watermelon, lots of seeds but very sweet.
That's a seeded variety, so you won't need a pollinator.
Man, talk about perfect timing. I bought the Orange Crisp from Johnny's Seed and was thrown for a loop to find that it was seedless. don't know if I'm experienced enough to pull it off but will give it my best shot. Zone 8A (?) just east of Dallas. Have plenty of Black Diamond seeds from last year, will they be OK for pollinators? Thanks...
Black Diamond should work fine as the pollenizer. I hope the Orange Crisp does well for you.
I was just wondering how to grow seedless watermelon, i think I'm going to stick with regular ones for now. Never seen seedless seeds in Australia
Seedless watermelons may not be as popular internationally as they are here in the U.S. Not sure. I do know that the breeding of them requires a lot of resources and money, and that's why the seeds are so expensive.
I use a nail file to do large pumpkin seeds.
Good tip!
Hey Travis, do you know a trick to store lettuce? I am afraid if I plant too much, or too many variety's, I will have to dispose of some. I can't eat that many salads but I like the idea.
I cut it dry, put it in a bag, poke a few holes in the bag, put it in the fridge, and I can usually get it to store for a week or more. Trick is putting in there dry and not washing until you're ready to eat it.
How often should you be fertilizing seedlings after they get their first true leaves?
Depends on how hard you want to push them. You could do a light dose every single day if you wanted. But most of the time 2x a week is sufficient.
I have a packet of seedless watermelon seeds and then the pollinator is also in there. Must I use the pollinator in the package or can I plant a more desirable watermelon that has seeds that we will eat but That will also pollinate the seedless hybrids?… It’s just that space is a premium and I hate to use up a lot of space for a watermelon that I don’t want
You can use any standard watermelon variety you want as the pollinator.
I didn’t see the link you mentioned sharing about the watermelons. Did I overlook it?
Sorry I forgot to add it when the video was published. It's there now.
I didnt find the link to the univ of nebraska on the watermelon....
Thanks for the reminder. I just added it in the video description.
Will the plastic wrap also hold water in at the bottom and cause rot?
It might if you left it on there for a long time. But we let all the water drain before applying the wrap, and we'll only leave it on there for at most a week or so hopefully.
You feeling OK? Your voice sounds a bit scratchy like you're getting over something. (or getting something) I have used a nail clipper to nick the seeds. Might be a little easier than using a knife. I didn't have much luck with the seedless watermelon last year. Whenever I see the big G on your cup I think Greenbay Packers :)
I did a lot of talking that day. Had several zoom calls, so I my voice box was a little worn. I read about the nail clipper idea, but those things can never be found when you need them! Interestingly enough, I'm a big Green Bay Packer fan as well. Have been since I was a little kid. Same G, just different colors.
@@LazyDogFarm That's good. Was a bit worried for ya. :) Looking forward to the watermelon results. I'm going with Babydoll this year. See ya on the next video.
How often do you fertilize your lettuce trav? Even the romain I can't get to form a head other than in a growing container
I just put Nature Safe 8-5-5 in the furrow at planting and that seems to be enough.
@@LazyDogFarm wow I have the worst luck with lettuce.... when do ya think it gets too hot to grow lettuce? Can you just grow it in the shade?
@@mattingly1217 It gets too hot for us in May. If I had a shaded spot, that would help. I won't plant lettuce again until October.
Ok maybe I missed it but, where did the seeds for this sedless variety come from?
Got the Orange Crisp seeds from Johnny's.
A emery board used for fingernails would be good to scuff the edge of the seeds instead of using a knife.. I have done this before with good success for hard to germinate seeds
Seems like that might work well. Thanks for sharing.
anyone do a nick vs non nicked seedless comparison?
i started 5 non nicked (solitaire) at 88 degrees and got 3 of 5
then 5 non nicked at 91 degrees and only had 1 of 5 popped (1 more of the original popped under the 91)
wondering if 91 is too high.........
next year im going to do 20 seeds... 10 nicked vs 10 non nicked at 88 degrees
I've never done a side-by-side, but I had a much higher germ rate with nicked last year versus non-nicked in previous years.
👍👍👍👍👍
Travis, would it be practical to try and grow watermelon in a container?
Frank, I sure hope so. I'm in a short season 5B. I'm going to try a couple of Orangeglo in my greenhouse in 10 gal. pots with my rich container mix. Should be able to control temperature, water and nutrients. Probably prune to two leaders per plant and one melon per leader. "We can only try", the motto of the firm.
@Frank As long as you don't mind them crawling out the container and all over the ground around the container. Your melons will likely be on the ground outside the container, but it can be done.
Where do you get colchicine? Interested in trying next year.
Colchicine is actually used to treat gout in humans. But no idea how you'd actually use it to make seedless watermelon seeds. I leave that to the experts.
@@LazyDogFarm didn't you say that in your video? That adding it to the seedlings was required?
@@joshm2089 The seed breeders do that. I know what they use to do it, but not exactly sure how they do it. We just buy the seedless seeds.
How do they hybridize the seedless melons? They're sterile so they won't have any seeds to keep from the good ones to produce more of them. Do they use cuttings to keep propagating the good ones? Otherwise, you are stuck replanting the parent's seeds in hope of getting another desired yield.
They take a standard watermelon variety that has 2 copies of each chromosome (diploid) and treat it with colchicine, which is actually something that is also used to treat gout in humans. Colchicine causes the chromosome number to double, resulting in tetraploid seeds. When you buy seedless watermelon seeds, they're tetraploid. When you grow those tetraploid plants amongst diploid plants, the cross-pollination results in a triploid or sterile fruit that has three copies of each chromosome.
@@LazyDogFarm Yeah. You covered that very well in the video. How do they keep the best ones then, to continue to keep breeding in desirable traits? Their offspring seedless ones are sterile, non-usable. Do they just breed better and better parents? Then they have to also grow some non-colchicine ones in case that want that desired trait to continue to develop.
The seedless have gotten much better. After I had that yellow seedless, I might not go back.
@@brianczuhai8909 They have to start with a fresh batch of diploid plants each time. As a result, the "seedless" seeds are very labor intensive to produce. That's why they cost so much more.
@@LazyDogFarm Bingo! Thanks! They should cost more. The seedless are dead from producing like offspring to produce more "good ones." You have to go back to the parents.
The other oddity is why the big seeded ones can't also be turned seedless.
Just as a confession, I always thought the seeded had a better crunch and texture than the seedless. But as you get older, it's more challenging to consume that much watermelon that the seeded ones provide. That yellow "Round" one was sized just right!
Might be a better hydration mechanism than drinking pop/soda.
How do we need to fertilize watermelons !
We use this stuff: agrothrive.com/?ref=Ttm7Og22_djSzH
As far as lettuce goes I was very disappointed last year I planted eight different varieties of lettuce and I put a lot of it in the ground I was mostly growing it to cut and come again all of it was bitter I thought maybe it was just the first round so I cut it when it grew back it was bitter again and this was early in the spring not sure what happened but I couldn't eat any of it
Usually bitterness is caused by stress -- either from heat, not enough water, or both.
Great class on genetics. I need a #bigmater ruling from you and Eddie at Poor Boys'. Large tomato varieties like Big Zac can express a trait called "megabloom" or "fused ovaries" where the blossoms form in close proximity, often in clusters of 2-5 blossoms and their tomatoes fuse together as they grow, forming very large and heavy but grotesque, misshapen fruit. This condition can form naturally, but there are growers, seeking to set records in tomato weights, who have developed dark practices to create these heavy abominations, often weighing 5-6 pounds. Certainly, no individual tomato, however large and well grown, would stand a chance against one of these Frankenfruits. I would hope that the Rules Committee, in the spirit of natural gardening, would disqualify any entrants showing the obvious signs of being the product of the megabloom aberration.
🤪
@mark ware Interesting thought ... So how we do determine if someone grows a megabloom tomato intentionally or unintentionally? I'd hate to penalize someone for growing a big tomato when they didn't intentionally try to rig it.
@@LazyDogFarm 🤭
@@LazyDogFarm Travis, I'm less concerned with the Kellogg's Breakfast variety than with Big Zac which, like all the giants, has a natural tendency toward megabloom. Gibberellic acid, a growth hormone, has been in the hands of plant breeders and growers for decades where it can be a valuable tool in commercial vegetable production. But it also has the potential for misuse by the unscrupulous seeking tomato weight above all other qualities. You wouldn't want to compete in sports against an athlete juiced up on steroids. Of course, I'm not talking about the Secret Sauces and Grandpa's Tomato Elixer, and other homebrew nutritional supplements. They're part of the fun. Perhaps split the Big Zac category so that the megabloom entrants can compete head-to-head and not overwhelm the single blossom tomato entrants. Another option would be that I'll just enter the Kellogg's side.
It doesn't sound like California famers will get any water this year. Last year they got 5% of their normal allocations. I doubt we'll be planting much of anything as they will likely limit us to 35 to 50 gallons a day and anything over that will have hefty charges.
Hard to have a decent-sized garden with only that much water allowed.
Could watermelon be outside in 50-60 degree weather?
It could, but not sure it would grow much. They tend to like things a little warmer.
Lol I planted a seed from a seedless watermelon and now I have a seedless watermelon plant. Go figure lol.
Good old GMO
Ahh..so it's regular seeds treated to make sterile ha this is awesome!! Keep scientific guy..its you...check out rose red homestead woman is a professor n uses science to explain cooking and canning n preserving...
I will check it out
R u a Gardner or teacher by profession
I actually have a digital marketing business. That's my day job. But my background is in biology. I taught biology at the collegiate level during grad school and for a few years after school.
Ok I see. But I still want the seeded.
Calgon take me away...