GROWING A WATERMELON: PLANTING THE SEEDS

So far in my year-long series chronicling my New Year’s resolution to grow my own watermelon I’ve revealed my plan to become an amateur farmer and shared some insight about how to grow my watermelon.

In today’s entry, I put months of research into action by planting the seed(s) that will ultimately become my very first homegrown watermelon.

For my watermelon, I chose the Sugar Baby, a smaller icebox variety of watermelon that are relatively easy to grow and mature very quickly. The finished fruit will be around 10 pounds and eight inches in diameter with a very sweet taste.

I planted about six of the seeds in this pot and six more in another planter. I’ll keep them both in the window sill of my kitchen for the next four to six weeks. During that time, the seeds should sprout. Then, in mid- to late-April (after the last frost of the season), I’ll transplant the sprouts in my backyard garden.

Right now, I don’t have a “backyard garden,” so I’ll be creating that in about four weeks and showing that process in my next entry!