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Keep ripening watermelon from direct contact with soil to prevent rot and protect fruit from pests and rodents. When fruit is about the size of a softball, place it on a bed of straw or cardboard. Setting fruit on a light-reflecting surface, such as aluminum foil, will concentrate heat and speed up ripening.
How do I protect my watermelon plants from animals?
Step by step: How to keep rodents off your melons with melon cages Get hardware cloth. Cut square-sized pieces of hardware cloth large enough to complete encircle your mature melons. Secure a cylindrical shape with metal string. Create your wire end folds. Close one end of your melon cage. Cage your melon.
How can we protect melons from pests?
Spray melon vines with a strong jet of water from your hose. This action is often enough to kill the majority of melon aphids, as well as small pests such as thrips and mites, that feed on the melon stems and foliage.
What plants keep bugs away from watermelon?
4 Plants to Grow With Watermelon These flowers also repel aphids, which can be particularly destructive to watermelon leaves and tendrils. Herbs: Pungent, aromatic herbs like mint, catnip, tansy, and basil are also excellent insect repellents.
What to put under watermelons while growing?
In order to grow great watermelons, you’ll need to put a barrier between the watermelons and the ground. This is to reduce the risk of rot and disease. Good ground barriers are straw, or even cardboard.
What animals will eat watermelon plants?
What Wild Animals Eat Watermelons in a Garden? Coyotes. Coyotes are notoriously good hunters, says the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, but they also love a good watermelon – and they’re sneaky. Raccoons and Deer. Birds. Deterrence.
What animal is eating my watermelon leaves?
Ground squirrels (Spermophilus spp.) and tree squirrels (Sciurus spp.) Squirrels will eat vegetables in the seedling stage and may chew watermelon vines. Their burrowing and munching of twigs and leaves can lead to further damage.
How do you control melon aphids?
Cultural controls include avoiding planting susceptible crops on or near an infested site, avoiding planting susceptible crops downwind from infested plants (winged adult aphids are usually blown downwind), destroying weeds that serve as alternate hosts for aphids, allowing heavily infested sites to lie fallow after.
How do you support a melon plant?
It needs to be sturdy enough to support the fruit and able to dry out quickly so it doesn’t rot the melon. Old nylons or T-shirts, cheesecloth, and netted fabric are all good choices; a fabric that breathes and stretches to accommodate the growing melon is best.
Should I cover my watermelon plant?
Give watermelon vines plenty of room to roam, which usually means spacing plants 3 to 5 feet apart. After planting, cover seedlings with floating row covers to keep out insects and trap warm air near plants. Watermelon vines bear male and female flowers.
Are you supposed to turn watermelons as they grow?
When it turns yellow, it’s a sign of ripeness. Be careful not to rotate your melon too much when you check the coloring or you may damage the vine. Just tip the fruit up enough to peek under it. On ripe melons, the green, curly tendrils near the stem start to dry out and turn brown.
Should I keep my watermelons off the ground?
One of the sweetest treats of summer is a homegrown melon. That said, whether you’re growing cantaloupes, muskmelons or watermelons, leaving the ripening fruits on the ground can lead to rot and damage from pests such as slugs, earwigs, pill bugs and wireworms.
How do you keep melons off the ground?
Use a cage, plastic mulch, stakes, straw mulch or other materials to protect the fruit from the ground. You can even use a wooden board for the fruit to rest on as it matures.
Will squirrels eat melons?
Squirrels also love bananas, watermelons, cantaloupe (any melon, in general), and cherries! The benefit of eating fruit for squirrels is that it gives them a major sugar-boost and provides lots of energy to keep scrambling around and foraging for more goodies.
Can watermelon plants be pruned?
So, to curtail the size, it is indeed possible to prune the plant. Beyond reining in the size, there are other reasons for watermelon trimming. Pruning watermelons promotes healthier vines and increases fruit size. Also, cutting back watermelon plants can cause the plant to send out additional runners.
Will squirrels eat watermelon?
As long as it is fed in moderation, watermelon is safe for squirrels. This doesn’t mean that you should give your squirrels watermelon on a daily basis. Squirrels are scavengers and won’t have a problem getting the foods they need to stay healthy, without having to eat watermelon.
Do rats eat watermelon?
For starters, rats love watermelon. But considering that rats eat just about everything, the simple fact that they’ll eat it doesn’t mean much. But watermelon is actually a good choice for rats. For starters, it’s a low-calorie option with vitamins A and C and plenty of potassium.
How do I protect my watermelon from the rain?
While you can’t control the rain, you can reduce the negative effects it has on your watermelon plants. Mulching around your plants prevents the rainwater from splashing soil onto the plants, reducing the chance of bacterial or fungal infection that might come from the soil.
How do I protect my watermelon seedlings?
Transplanting Seedlings Handle watermelon seedlings with extreme care when you transplant. Their roots are very fragile, so try not to disturb the soil when removing them from pots. After transplanting, cover the plants with row covers to keep pests at bay.
