Growing Large Veggies/Fruit in Containers/Complete Guide with Digital Table of Contents

Hi everyone. If you're looking for a quick and simple way to grow veggies in a small space, containers is the way to go. Today it's all about growing large veggies like tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and even large fruit like watermelon in containers. Yes, it can be done. I've compiled my summer series on growing large veggies in containers all into one video so you have all the tips and tricks you need in one place. I'll cover topics like how to grow and plant tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and watermelon, and also watering, fertilizing, choosing a container, choosing soil, and trellising. We'll take a deeper dive into growing and planting squash and watermelon and we'll even have a harvest of fresh juicy watermelon at the end of the video so you don't want to miss that. I've put a digital table of contents in the video description so you can click and watch the sections you're most interested in. No matter how big or small your growing space, by the end of this video you'll know exactly how to grow and plant tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and watermelon in containers and you'll be harvesting them before you know it. So comment below, let me know what you learned, let me know what you'll be growing in containers this summer. Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you at the end of the video. Hi everyone, well today I'm going to show you how to grow large vegetables in containers. Now if you just have a small space to grow in like a patio or a deck or live in an apartment, you might think that you can't grow large vegetables. Not so. With the tips I'm going to show you in this video today you'll be growing tomatoes, squash, eggplant, and yes even watermelon in containers on your deck or patio. So come on let's go check it out. One of the keys for growing large vegetables in containers is to choose the right container. Now I love to grow in smart pots. They're a very durable fabric container and because of the aeration the roots do something called air pruning. So in other words when the roots hit the side of the container, rather than winding up and getting all coiled up into a root ball like they do in plastic containers, they turn the other direction and form a nice fibrous root ball which allows the vegetable to take up more nutrients and water. The other thing is choose a container that's the right size. You definitely don't want to go with a very small container for a large vegetable like a tomato or an eggplant because it just won't be enough room for that vegetable to grow and produce for you. So this container here is a 20 gallon container which I think it's working out great. I have this Amish paste tomato planted here. It's growing beautifully. I've got a couple little basil plants around the base and I threw in a couple of marigolds because it does repel bugs and also adds some really a nice pop of color to the container once it blooms. Today I'm going to plant an eggplant, a zucchini, and two different varieties of compact watermelon. Typically I would plant these in a raised bed but they're going to grow very nicely in this large 20 gallon container here. And the other thing I really love about these containers is they have handles. So if you need to move them around on your patio or deck, move them into the sun or move them into the shade, they're very portable and move around very easily. The second key to growing large vegetables in containers is to choose a good potting soil. Now containers do tend to dry out very easily and these large vegetables are very heavy feeders. So I'm going to be growing here with Eco Scraps potting soil which is a moisture retentive potting mix. It has all kinds of good organic materials in it. It is actually made from composted food scraps. So I'm going to pour this into my SmartPots container and we're going to pre-moisten the soil before we add our plants. What I like to do is pre-moisten my soil before I add my plants, wet it down. And the nice thing about the Eco Scraps potting mix is because it is moisture retentive, you don't have to add as much moisture to get it wet before you add your plants. So just mix it around here with my pitchfork to kind of work the water in. And you don't want it dripping wet like mud. You want it kind of the consistency of like a crumbly brownie mix. So I've mixed it in. I'm going to add a little bit more water. It's nice and black, really rich, has a lot of good organic nutrients. Okay, that looks pretty good. I'm going to add another bag of soil. We're just going to repeat this process till my container is full. My container is full. The soil looks really nice and fluffy. And I just wanted to show you about the moisture that's good to have in your container soil. You can see when I pick it up and kind of squeeze it, it stays together in a loose ball. So this container took a little bit more than two bags to fill. So it's just about full all the way to the top. Now even though Eco Scraps potting mix does have a lot of great organic nutrients in it, because the plants that I'm going to be growing are large plants and very heavy feeders, I'm also going to add some of my own favorite organic nutrients. And that really is also one of the keys to growing large vegetables successfully in containers is to making sure that they're fed properly. So I'm adding a couple of scoops of the Vermisterra worm castings. I'm going to add, I'll say maybe a cup or so of the worm castings to the mix here. And those worm castings you only have to add once a season. So it really makes it a great way to feed your plants and get them off to a good start. And I'm also going to add some organic fertilizer. This is Trifecta Plus and it has quick acting nutrients. It'll feed my plants right away and get them going. And it also has slow release nutrients which will feed the plants over the growing season. So I'm adding about a fourth a cup or so of the Trifecta Plus and then I am going to work that into the soil. And then we're just about ready to get the plants in here. Before we get our plant in this container, another key to growing large vegetables in container is watering. So I like to install drip irrigation in all of my containers. That way it ensures that my plants will be productive and have the consistent water. Now if you missed the video on how to install drip irrigation in containers, I'll put a pop-up link above. You'll definitely want to go back and watch that video. But I'm going to get the drip irrigation installed in this container and then we'll get the plant in. That literally took me about five minutes to hook this container into my container drip irrigation system on my duck. Now don't let drip irrigation intimidate you. It's super easy to install and very inexpensive and will definitely help your plants be productive. So in this container here I'm going to plant a Black Beauty Zucchini and I'm planting it here on the edge of my deck because in case it trails over it'll trail over into this little walkway here. But I am going to be putting it on a trellis. So we'll do that here in just a second. So you definitely want to consider the location on your deck when you're planting your large vegetables here. Think about the walkways where people are going to be standing or walking on your patio or deck. But I'm going to dig a hole here a little bit deeper than the container my plant is in. Just grasp the stem, turn the container over and squeeze it to loosen the plant. And it's got some nice looking roots. I'm just going to loosen the roots up just a bit before I plant it in the hole here, before I set it down in the hole. So I'll just set it right down here in the hole. Fill it with this nice black soil. I'm going to tamp it down a little bit. And wow that plant looks absolutely gorgeous. Now you'll notice here that there are three little stems because there were probably three or four different seeds planted in that small container that the plant was in. And we'll see how it goes here. If it gets too thick in here and too full then I can always thin it back to just one zucchini plant. But what I'm going to do now is put a cage over this plant and we're going to grow this plant vertically to save on space. So let me grab my cage. So for my zucchini plant I'm going to use a large tomato cage and these are really nice and sturdy. Now I'm going to be using my DIY cages a little bit later on in the video but I did purchase this cage for my zucchini and my eggplant today. And one reason I like it is because it has such wide areas that'll be easy to reach in and pick the zucchini and pick the eggplant. But this is just so easy just to set right down over the container here, over the plant in the container. Might have to kind of bend the legs in but this is a super duty heavy duty tomato cage. I believe it's made out of like galvanized steel. I just got it at the local garden center and it's going to be perfect for this zucchini plant. So we'll just grow up vertically and we'll definitely train this plant up through the cage as it grows so that it won't take up so much space. Wow that looks so pretty. I love the green. It's going to be so great to have that fresh zucchini to pick and eat. I can't wait. Next we're going to get an eggplant. I've already got my container filled. I've got my worm castings, my trifecta plus, my soil, I've got my drip irrigation in. All that's left on this one is to plant my black beauty zucchini. Now if you've never grown a black beauty zucchini it is absolutely delicious. Large purple zucchini. This one I planted from seed. Started it indoors about six weeks ago and oh my goodness I can taste the eggplant parmesan. So tasty and fresh and it's great on the grill too. Just put it right in the center there and these drip irrigation hoses have little emitters built right into them so it makes it even easier to install. I'll soak this container down and I do have my drip irrigation on a timer as well so that all my plants will get really nice consistent watering. And oh I almost forgot I was going to plant some marigolds around the edges here. Now marigolds are a great way to add a pop of color to your garden. These I also started from seed and they also help repel the insects that you don't want around. So I'm going to plant a couple of these around the edge here in this container and these are super easy to grow. They're very drought tolerant, heat tolerant. Plant maybe three around the edges here. It's going to add a nice little pop of color to each container. It's going to look really pretty. I've got some marigolds planted. I can't wait to see the nice splash of color those are going to add. So I'm going to add some shredded leaf mulch here to the top of my soil. I'll go back and do this to the zucchini plant also because containers do tend to dry out very easily and mulch is especially important to help you be successful in growing your large vegetables in containers. So I'm using shredded leaf mulch. You can also use straw. Works really well. Just add maybe an inch or so layer to the top. Put my label in and I'm going to water it in with some worm tea. It's the vermistera worm tea. Really helps seedlings get off to a great start. Gets all those beneficial bacteria and microbes going in the soil that really help the roots grow nice and strong. And then we've got our cage. Now I've got two varieties of watermelon to plant. Now for containers I like to plant the compact varieties of watermelon. So I've got a sugar baby and a blacktail mountain with two containers left to go. The first watermelon variety I'm going to plant is called blacktail mountain and it's a beautiful small compact red variety of watermelon. So I'm going to plant it exactly the same way I did the other plants. Just dig a hole in the middle, pop this baby in there. I started this one from seed as well and these grow so fast you can start the seeds indoors about three to four weeks before you'd like to plant them outside. Or you can also just plant seeds directly in the containers and they just pop up very quickly and are just super fast growers. Now watermelon do like a lot of sun so you want to put them in a spot where it's going to get like six to eight hours of sun a day. At least. Now in the container right behind me I'm going to plant the sugar baby watermelon which is also a really nice compact variety. Now for my watermelon I'm going to use my DIY tomato cages. If you missed that video it's a great way to save some money and make a nice sturdy cage for your tomatoes. But in this case I'm using for my watermelon because the watermelon tend to be a lot heavier and they're going to need more support. So I'm actually going to support them with these tall eight foot poles as well. So let's go ahead and come over to where the watermelon containers are. Now the great thing about the DIY cages is you can really make them to fit your garden space. I made them a little bit larger for the tomatoes that I put in the ground. If you watch the video you saw that. But I made them smaller for the containers that I'm planting these vegetables in here just so that they would fit. So I push them down in here. They really go in easily to that container soil. It's nice and loose. And I'm going to take one of these poles. See if I can get up high enough. This is a nice eight foot pole or maybe it's a six foot pole. But I'm going to weave it in between the wires here of the cage because this needs to support a watermelon. Now even though these are compact watermelon I still want to have plenty of support for them so they don't collapse. And we do get pretty high winds here so I found that this stake really does the job in the high winds as well. So use whatever you have available to you. I've used rebar in the past. The wooden stakes also work well too. But these are nice and sturdy and they'll push all the way down into the bottom of the container. There we go. And the nice thing is if the watermelon gets taller than this cage, which it probably will, I could always tie it up here or I could even trail it back behind here and kind of keep it out of the way. Growing large vegetables in containers definitely can be done successfully as long as you choose the right container, choose the right kind of soil and make sure that you give them consistent water. Hi everyone. Welcome back to Growing Large Veggies and Fruits in Containers series. Today I'm going to share with you some tips on growing zucchini in containers. If you're growing in a small space like a patio or a deck you might think you can't grow large vegetables. Not so. I'm actually growing zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and yes even watermelon in 20 gallon smart pots containers. So make sure you go back and watch the first few videos in this series so you know exactly how to get started. Along with sharing some zucchini container growing tips I'm also going to share with you how to deal with common problems that affect zucchini plants such as blossom end rot and powdery mildew. But before we do that I'm very excited to share with you my very first harvest of the season from the zucchini plant. My zucchini plant is growing absolutely fabulously in this 20 gallon smart pots and first off I want to say thank you so much to smart pots for partnering with us on this episode. They have a fantastic fabric grow bag container and this one actually has handles so I can move it around if I need to. But the great thing about smart pots is they are porous fabric so the roots air prune which means that they don't circle around the pot but instead they grow a nice fibrous root ball which actually allows the plant to grow quicker and larger. So this plant has only been in this container for about six weeks. It started off as a small little transplant a few inches high and wow what amazing growth and I already have a zucchini to harvest just six weeks after planting. Now you can see this absolutely beautiful zucchini right here that is the perfect size to harvest and right next to it is a small tiny zucchini which didn't get pollinated. So I'm actually going to remove this small little zucchini that didn't get pollinated and harvest the large one and take it inside to eat for dinner tonight. Harvesting a zucchini is super easy. What I like to do is simply twist it very gently from the stem. I don't like to use a knife or scissors because I don't like to risk cutting the main stem of the plant. So just twist it very gently and there we go it's harvested. Now I do like to harvest them when they're small. This one might be a tad bit on the oversized side but when you harvest them they're small they're nice and tender and this will be great on the grill or roasted up in the oven and these things produce like crazy. So if you want to grow something that's going to give you lots and lots of food zucchini is the plant for you. The first tip to growing zucchini successfully in containers is to provide it with some support. Now zucchini does grow like a bush does tend to have some vines that trail off throughout the growing season but here I have just a simple store-bought tomato cage placed deep in my container and zucchini has such large leaves so you're not really trellising the entire plant but you're just feeding the leaves up through the tomato cage as it grows. So you want to come out here and check your plant every couple of days and that way it provides it saves some space and provides your container with the support that it needs because you're going to be growing a lot of really large vegetables on this plant. Second tip for growing zucchini successfully in containers is to hand pollinate if you need to. Now how do you know if you need to hand pollinate your zucchini? Well remember this small little tiny zucchini I picked off my plant at the beginning of the video this zucchini did not get pollinated by the bees so that's a real sign if you're seeing a lot of these on your plant that you need to get out here and hand pollinate because of course you want to grow nice big zucchini like this so you have a lot to eat. Now I'll put a link up above I just did a video in detail on how to hand pollinate watermelon it's exactly the same for zucchini. The third tip for growing a nice crop of zucchini in a container is to make sure you're watering it enough and to make sure you're feeding it regularly. Now container plants definitely dry out faster are depleted of nutrients quicker than plants you might grow in a raised bed so you definitely want to keep up with that. Now I have all my container plants here on a drip irrigation system they're on a timer so they get regular watering but if you don't have a drip irrigation system for your containers you want to check it daily to make sure it's not drying out. You do that simply by sticking your finger in the container as far down as you can get it we've been pulling up some soil you can see here this soil is pretty dry my plant definitely needs some water so I'm going to show you how to water it today and also show you how to fertilize it at the same time. Fertilize your zucchini container plants with a good water soluble fertilizer. My favorite is vermisterate worm tea which is definitely water soluble and that just means that the nutrients all the beneficial bacteria and microbes in this worm tea are going to be immediately available to my plant so I'm just going to add three to six three to six ounces per gallon so I'm adding six ounces to my two gallon watering container here and I'm going to water my plant with it until the water runs out the bottom. Now the nice thing about growing in smart pots is that the fabric is aerated which allows the water to drain properly so the roots don't get waterlogged and it also helps the plant to breathe which keeps it cooler on a hot summer day. I'm going to give my plant a nice little drink in just a moment but before I do that I want to talk about a few things that are common to zucchini plants. You might notice the leaves are drooping here well it's very common in the midday sun for the leaves to droop like this but it doesn't necessarily mean they need water so don't run out and water your plants right away just because the leaves are drooping because if you over water it the roots will rot and your plant won't grow properly so always check for water first like I showed you earlier by checking the soil if it feels dry definitely give it some water. If it doesn't feel dry don't water it and most likely your leaves will perk right back up in the cool of the evening. Now a few other issues that are very common to zucchini the first one being blossom end rot. Here's what blossom end rot looks like you can see the zucchini here has kind of a soft end to it like it's kind of rotting and this is caused either by one of two things either by a lack of calcium in the soil or by under watering so the plant can't take up the calcium that is in the soil. The problem of blossom end rot is very easily solved by one of two things by making sure that your plant is on a regular watering schedule so it can take up the calcium that is in the soil or by adding calcium to the soil. I'm going to add some calcium to my soil today by crushing up a couple Tums tablets which have calcium in them and then watering them into the soil and that will help solve the problem for any future zucchinis that grow on this plant. So I'm just crushing up my Tums tablets till they're a really fine powder just sprinkle that around the base of my plant then I'm going to water with my watering can that has the worm tea in it get it nice and soaked I'm going to water at the base of the plant so avoid getting the leaves wet and avoid getting powdery mildew and I'm going to water the plant until the water runs out the bottom. The other problem that regularly plagues zucchini plants is powdery mildew which is the bane of any gardener's existence. If you've never seen powdery mildew it's a white powdery substance that tends to coat the leaves of your plant in warm wet weather when the leaves don't have a chance to dry out and it definitely it's a bacterial infection that will spread to your other plants. You can help keep it under control by avoiding getting the leaves wet so by watering at the base of your plant and also by using a really simple foliar spray. This time I'm actually using the Vermistera worm tea again a couple tablespoons in this quart size spray bottle. The worm tea works great as a foliar spray because it coats your leaves with a protective film of beneficial bacteria and organisms that grow and multiply on your leaves and crowd out the diseases that tend to develop on your plant leaves and also help protect it from pests. So I like to do this early in the morning before the sun comes out and that way it has the day for the leaves to dry before the evening hits and that will avoid your leaves being wet overnight. Now if you do notice some powdery mildew on your leaves or if your leaves start getting kind of old and yellow looking this one's got a little bit of yellowing around the edges. What I like to do is just come in here and snip off the leaf as close to the base of the plant as you can and pretty soon you'll see some new growth appear. That also helps to keep a large plant like this under control in a small growing space. Thank you so much SmartPots for supplying the containers for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about SmartPots go to smartpots.com. I'll also put links down in the video description and on my website and my Amazon store and where you can purchase them. Well I can't wait to get inside and cook up some of my freshly harvested zucchini and eat it. It's going to be so delicious. Comment below let me know if you're growing zucchini or any of the other large vegetables from this series in containers. I'd love to hear your growing tips as well. Thank you so much for watching we'll see on the next video. Hi everyone today I'm going to share with you three tips for growing watermelons successfully in a container. Now many people think if you only have a small space to garden in such as a patio or balcony you can't grow large vegetables. Not so. If you join me for the first video in this series I showed you how to plant tomatoes, squash, eggplant and yes even watermelon in 20 gallon SmartPots containers. Well they're growing beautifully here behind me. What I thought I would do now is go back and do detailed videos of how to grow each of those large vegetables successfully in a container. Here I have two different varieties of compact watermelon Blacktail Mountain and Sugar Baby growing in two different 20 gallon SmartPots containers. Now they do grow really well in the SmartPots containers because this fabric is aerated so what that means is when the roots reach the sides of the containers rather than wrapping around into a tight root ball they do something called air pruning. So they form a nice fibrous root mass which helps them be able to take up nutrients air and water and still grow large and be very productive in containers. So check out the first video in this series for more about that. The first tip to growing watermelon successfully in a container is to provide it with some kind of a support or a trellis. I mean the reason why most of us are growing in containers is because we're short on space. So trellising helps your plant grow up not out and that way you save on space. But it's important that when you're growing up a trellis you train your watermelon and come out every couple of days and weave these little branches that are growing up in between the mesh on your trellis. Now they do have little tendrils that will grab on once you weave them up but you do have to train them and check on them every couple of days to make sure they're growing up and not branching out. Now I do have some wayward stems here that I didn't get um woven up inside my trellis in time. So what I'm going to do is just very gently weave them up inside like so and then to help them grab on a little quicker I've got my very favorite plastic stretchy tie tape which you don't even need scissors for you just break up break it off and I like to use this at the base to kind of give it a little bit of extra support. So I just tie it around the stem here this stuff is so handy I use it all the time in the garden I absolutely love it. So just tie it on to the bottom here to provide it with a little bit of extra support and that way the branches don't flop all over the place. So as it grows I'll keep weaving it in and out till it grows all the way up the trellis. I've got lots of flowers here on my watermelon plants and even some little teeny tiny baby watermelon which is always really fun to see. Now as those watermelon grow I'll be doing another video on how to support them on the trellis here so they don't break and fall to the ground. So make sure you subscribe to my channel so you don't miss those updates. Our second tip for helping watermelon grow successfully in a container is you may need to hand pollinate those flowers. Now don't let that scare you it's very very simple let me share with you how that's done. Now to hand pollinate you need two things a male and a female flower and I actually have a little pollinator right here that came along to help me so I probably don't really need to hand pollinate these but I'll show you how to do it anyway. The male flower often develops first it's just a stalk here with the flower on the end and the middle part of the male flower right here is called the stamen. Now the female flower is attached to a small little immature fruit and the middle of the female flower is called the stigma. The flowers are ready to hand pollinate when they are both open. First I'll do it with the flower itself. I'm just going to pick the male flower and the flower is open so I'm just going to tap the male flower onto the female flower several times. Now if there's still pollen left on the male flower you can go ahead and pollinate other female flowers. You can also hand pollinate with a little paintbrush. So here I have an old makeup brush it's now my pollinating brush. Just dab the male flower to pick up some pollen and then dab the female flower to transfer the pollen. By hand pollinating you can help the bees along a little bit pollinate these small immature fruit so they develop into full-grown watermelon. The third tip for growing watermelon successfully in a container is check for water daily and make sure you fertilize weekly. Now because your plants are growing in a container they're going to dry out much quicker than if you're growing them in a raised bed. So it's really important especially with watermelon that they have enough water or the melons just won't develop fully. So I actually have mine on a drip irrigation system. I've got my hoses here that feed into my container and the drip irrigation hoses wind around my plant and really soak down my plant. I have them on a timer have them set to water I think it's 10 minutes every other day but it really depends on the weather. If we're getting some really hot weather I come out and check them every single day. So what I like to do is just come out stick my finger here in the soil about three or four inches and see if it feels dry. If it feels dry I definitely want to give them a little extra drink here with my watering can or with my hose and you want to water it until you see water coming out the bottom. That way you know that the roots are completely soaked. Now the other important thing is to make sure that you give them regular feedings with some kind of water soluble liquid fertilizer. Container plants the nutrients and container plants are depleted much quicker than your in-ground plants so it's really important that you feed them regularly if you want a crop of watermelon. I think most of you do. Now I like to use the Vermisterra worm tea it's a great liquid fertilizer and it has all kinds of beneficial bacteria and microbes really helps your plants be healthy and productive. You can go back and check the worm tea video for more detailed information on that but basically all I do is mix about three ounces per gallon and this watering container is two gallons so I'm going to add six ounces to it. Give it a little stir and water it in and don't be afraid to get it on the leaves on the flowers. The worm tea is actually a great foliar fertilizer as well. It will help you protect your plants against pests and diseases and again water it until the water comes out the bottom. Well I hope you found these tips helpful. As long as you provide your plants with some good support hand pollinate the flowers if you need to, give them plenty of water and fertilize them once a week you should have no problem growing some really nice watermelon of your own in containers also. Thank you so much SmartPots for supplying the containers for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more about SmartPots visit smartpots.com and I'll also put links in the video description and on my website in my Amazon store and where you can purchase them. Comment below let me know if you're growing watermelon in containers, what variety you're growing, any container growing tips you might have. Thank you so much for watching we'll see on the next video. Hi everyone here's Callie Kim's two-minute tip for the day. Watermelon we all love growing them there's nothing better than a cold refreshing watermelon on a hot summer day that you grow yourself but when you grow them on a trellis they get heavy. So today I'm going to show you how to make a really easy quick watermelon sling to support your watermelon when you're growing them vertically. You'll need two things to make your watermelon slings a pair of pantyhose for smaller watermelons or a piece of an old t-shirt for watermelons that are a little bit bigger. So first of all the pair of pantyhose works great for melons that are little babies like this one right here. You simply gather up your pantyhose, slip it over your watermelon and then tie it off on your trellis. Now the great thing about these pantyhose is that they will expand as your watermelon grow to accommodate the size of the growing melon. Next use your piece of old t-shirt to support a watermelon that's a little bit larger. So I'm just going to place my t-shirt very carefully under my watermelon, take two opposite corners and tie it to the trellis then take the other two opposite corners and do the same thing. This will give you a nice sturdy support for your watermelon and the t-shirt will also stretch to accommodate the watermelon as it grows. This also serves a dual purpose because it will protect your watermelon against the pests that like to come out and eat them right as they get ripe. I hope you enjoyed this quick watermelon tip. Subscribe, share and we'll see on the next Cali Kim two-minute tip. Hi everyone today I'm so excited I have a watermelon harvest for my 20 gallon containers. Now it's the first time I've ever grown watermelon in containers before growing them vertically on a trellis. It's been super hot about a hundred degrees for the past few days and I want to check and see if they're ready to harvest. I planted these watermelon about 10 weeks ago in 20 gallon smart pots containers and I couldn't be more pleased with their progress. I've got some compact varieties which work really well in containers where here I've got a sugar baby variety and I've got a blacktail mountain variety right behind me and there are three that I want to check to see if they're ready so let's go check it out. I've got my watermelon sling on my little watermelon down here and I'm going to take it off to show you how to check to see if it is ready to harvest. So this watermelon sling does a great job of supporting the melon on the trellis and sounds nice and hollow that's one good sign but I found the surefire sign that a melon is ripe is to check the tendril and let me show you what I mean. Here you see the stem that's connected to the watermelon and the closest tendril to it is this one right here see a little curly Q tip on the end that's the tendril and when it's all brown and shriveled up like this that means that this melon is ready to harvest. I'm so excited it's my first harvest of the season of these melons. Cannot wait to chill it in the fridge and eat it. I'm just going to clip it off. Wow this is a beauty look at this is absolutely gorgeous I love growing watermelon but I actually have a couple more that I'm going to check to see as well. So let's check out this one here now this one I've got in a little pantyhose sling these are a lot of fun because they stretch out and grow with the melon you can see I've wrapped a couple pairs of pantyhose around this one because I was concerned about it breaking off the vine and before we unwrap everything let's do the tendril test here okay there's my tendril right there it's brown that's a good sign see that right there this melon is also ready to harvest look at that these are so gorgeous absolutely beautiful okay we've got one more and this one is the biggest one of the bunch put this one in a t-shirt sling because again I was concerned about the weight and I even put this little stick underneath it to support it and it's done the job just fine so let's find the tendril here okay got the stem follow it along and look those tendrils are nice and dry so this one's also ready untie it and take it off I'm so excited beautiful oh my gosh look at that oh that is a nice one oh my gosh that is gorgeous it's not a crack it's just a little bit of brown spot on the bottom but this is beautiful I have to cut into these and give it the taste test watermelon is one of my favorite things to grow and I cannot wait to dig into this now I washed the big one so it's nice and clean ready to cut open and give it the taste test this is so exciting first one of the season the first harvest of the season is always the best let's crack into this baby oh my gosh did you hear that pop look at the juice oh oh my goodness look at that look at the color that is so exciting okay let's cut off a piece thank you so much for watching we'll see on the next video