How To Prune Watermelon Plants

Pruning watermelon plants will increase your yield, improve the fruit quality and enhance your plant health. Here I share how I implement the information I’v…
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How To Prune Watermelon Plants

| Gardening Education | 25 Comments
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25 Comments

  • vic green

    Though it might be required due to space limitations,
    pruning watermelon vines is not generally recommended and (I’m afraid) DOES
    NOT improve total yield, fruit size, or fruit quality. The greater the
    leaf to melon ratio, the better the fruit. With watermelons, you’d be
    better off letting the vines grow really long and allowing ONLY a melon (or
    2) per plant to focus all that energy soaked-up by those sun-loving leaves.

    Also, consider growing vertically. (Yes, with watermelons!)?

  • Kyle Lester

    If you trellised them up the wall you would save even more space. I think
    having multiple melons per vine could work if you had optimum soil
    fertility and a long enough growing season but just like most things having
    just 1 will make it bigger. The tendril getting brown/falling off is
    certainly not a 100% bet of ripeness. Many times I’ve picked the fruit that
    way to only find it pink inside…if anyone knows of a 100% sure fire way
    to tell please say because i find it one of the more difficult things to
    determine in gardening, hollow sound doesn’t always work either.?

  • Leonard J Kovar

    David, how many individual plants did you have in that box to get 25
    melons? Thanks for the video. I’ll will be pruning my watermelons in the
    future.?

  • donze52

    I also use wild gourd leaf tea for bug repellent for my watermelons. see
    nothing in the bug world eats wild gourd leaves so the tea made from them
    acts like a bug repellent for your other crop leaves. no use growing
    watermelon then drowning it in
    pesticide?

  • pokemon Ranger

    I’m growing around 15 watermelon plants but they are in the ground so they
    don’t like to be pruned. but was going to say people don’t need to restrict
    them self’s with small variety watermelon to be a successful watermelon
    grower! (Dixie Queen, Orange Tender sweet, and Tsilnolystyy) are med/larg.
    varieties they do great in cold climates, crappy soils, drought, and just
    perfect for beginners!?

  • How to Grow a Garden with Scarlett Damen

    very interesting thanks for that I had no idea you could prune watermelons.
    Why do you prune? is it better for the mellon or just a space problem. when
    growing peaches I know its best to have no more than 2 peaches per small
    branch for the first few years.

    Thanks for sharing.
    Scarlett
    Ps. how big are these watermelons going to get??

  • hackptui

    Thanks for posting this. We’ve got 7 melon vines in our garden, and we’ve
    been going nuts trying to figure out how much to prune or not prune. The
    description in the MGC book don’t seem to answer all our questions.

    So do you let each sucker that appears grow until it sets a fruit, then cut
    the end off? So, in other words, if you have one vine coming out of the
    ground, you could have dozens of vines branching off in different
    directions, each with its own fruit? Or do you limit each root system to
    supporting a certain number of melons, and cut off all new suckers after
    you reach that upper limit?

    We’re growing Jubilee, Black Diamond, and Crimson Sweet, if those are
    pruned differently…?

  • Jean Leake

    Thank you for video. We have a problem! We have flowers but do not see
    any melons behind the flowers. Are we going to get melons? We live in
    Minnesota and there is only about 6 to 8 weeks at the most of warm weather.
    What to do, what to do. PLEASE!?

  • Chastidee Bromell

    Is this the same method you would use to prune cucumber vines. I was
    thinking that mine need to be pruned but I never did and they are growing
    very full. This is my husband and my first time growing cucumbers so we
    don’t really know much about the care for them. Thanks.?

  • Tim Huffman

    fantastic video with great detail. thank you so much for sharing this
    valuable information. I grow sugar baby watermelons in southwest florida,
    and my last harvest was only 6 melons from 4 plants because I had no idea
    how to prune. I’ll be sure to re-visit and re-watch this video again in the
    future. thanks again ?