How to Grow the Best Seedless Watermelon

If your watermelon is seedless, how do you get seeds from it to grow it in your garden? Seedless watermelon vines grow from seeds that are hybridized over three generations. The resulting hybrid seedless watermelon seeds are triploid, meaning that they contain three sets of chromosomes instead of the normal two sets that regular diploid seeded melons contain. The vines that grow from the triploid seeds can produce female flowers, but they cannot produce viable pollen. Pollen from a regular diploid type of watermelon allows the fruits to form on the triploid vines, but the fruits are sterile and do not produce seeds. You must begin with specific hybridized seedless watermelon seeds, and you must also grow regular pollinator varieties interspersed with seedless hybrids so your vines will set fruit.

Tiller
Garden rake
Compost
Small stakes or stick markers
Hybrid seedless watermelon seedlings
Pollinator variety watermelon seedlings
Mulch
Garden hose or watering can

Instructions

- 1
  Select a site in full sun. Till a large area to a depth of about eight inches. Spread about two inches of compost over the soil and till it in until it is mixed thoroughly. Rake the prepared ground smooth. Watermelon vines can spread 12 feet or more.
- 2
  Make a plan allowing at least 4 feet between watermelon plants and between rows. Plan to intersperse pollinator variety watermelons at the rate of one pollinator per 10 seedless. Mark planting spots with small stakes or stick markers in the prepared soil.
- 3
  Set the watermelon seedlings into the prepared soil at the markers, following your plan for pollinator placement. The seedlings should be in peat pots or other transplantable pots, because watermelon vines are fragile and they do not tolerate transplant shock. The watermelon vines should be set at the same depth they were previously growing. Gently firm the soil around the transplants.
- 4
  Water the transplants to ensure good contact with the soil and to promote new root growth. Provide plenty of water throughout the growing season, about 2 inches per week, or more in excessively hot and dry weather. Don’t allow the plants to wilt.
- 5
  Mulch around the vines to keep weeds down. Hoe or till under the weeds occasionally, being careful not to disturb the watermelon vines.
- 6
  Avoid using pesticides. Bees are absolutely necessary to pollinate the blossoms for fruit set, and pesticides will kill bees.
- 7
  Fertilize the watermelon vines by spreading one inch of additional rich compost around them about three weeks after you transplant the seedlings.

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