Watermelons -How to Grow, Water, and Fertilize- Organic Gardening Tips

0:00

hi everyone so today i'm doing a

0:02

follow-up on these watermelons um these

0:05

are some of the ones that i planted from

0:06

seed here and i've actually gone through

0:08

and redressed around the edges of this

0:11

plant here with some

0:13

with some other material

0:15

because i kind of run a little too close

0:16

to this with my lawnmower

0:18

i'm actually going to go through and

0:20

mulch this

0:21

in the previous video i mentioned that i

0:23

may or may not mulch them

0:25

but i'm going to go through and mulch

0:26

because it's going to help keep the

0:27

grass down around it and then also i'm

0:30

going to help out with the water

0:31

retention and things here so

0:34

i'm going to talk about fertilization

0:35

today too and for these green leafy ones

0:38

that don't have flowers on them yet i'm

0:40

going to use a nitrogen-based fertilizer

0:41

and i'll get into that in a moment

0:43

so here i have my nitrogen-based

0:45

fertilizer

0:46

this is an organic fish fertilizer it's

0:48

from this

0:50

company called alaska

0:51

and it has an mpk value of five one and

0:54

one so the five there stands for the

0:56

nitrogen the one for the phosphorus and

0:59

the one for the potassium there on the

1:01

end so

1:02

it says to use two tablespoons per

1:04

gallon of water

1:05

here i have a two gallon

1:08

watering can so i'm going to use four of

1:10

these tablespoons i'm going to get these

1:11

put in here

1:14

and then i'm going to get that mixed up

1:15

with the water and that's what i'm going

1:17

to use to water my plants today

1:19

especially these ones that are more

1:21

lacking in growth

1:23

i want to get them some more nitrogen so

1:25

that they can get some more

1:27

some more growth to them because that

1:28

nitrogen it helps to feed the

1:30

chlorophyll and the chlorophyll helps to

1:32

feed the plant

1:33

so right now as i'm watering this plant

1:35

i'm going to water a little bit away

1:36

from the plant

1:38

i'm going to use this fish fertilizer

1:40

keep it around here

1:42

and i'm just going to go through and wet

1:43

this mound

1:46

and i'm using the mulch that i put down

1:48

too to kind of help me disperse

1:50

the water as well a little bit away from

1:52

the plant making sure that i get a good

1:53

soak on that mound

1:55

so here i have two options

1:57

for some fertilizers for your melons

2:00

that have flowers on them so for the

2:01

melons with flowers you want ones that

2:04

you want fertilizers that have a higher

2:06

phosphorus and potassium content than

2:08

nitrogen because you need good

2:10

phosphorus and potassium for both the

2:11

flowers and the fruit

2:13

so here we've got this perfect organic

2:15

natural mix

2:16

it had an npk

2:18

of three to six to one

2:22

i'm sorry three to six to four

2:24

and here i have this espoma organic

2:26

garden tone which has an npk value

2:30

of three to four to four and again that

2:33

first number is the nitrogen the middle

2:34

numbers the phosphorus and that last

2:36

number is the potassium so i was looking

2:37

for things that had a higher phosphorus

2:40

and potassium content than nitrogen and

2:42

that's what we're going to be using on

2:43

these melon plants that have flowers so

2:46

before i go through and put my mulch i

2:47

had already started mulching it and then

2:49

realized i needed to put down this

2:50

granular plant food

2:52

we're going to take a third of a cup of

2:53

this for established plants and put it

2:55

around the drip line so i'll show you

2:57

how to do that now

2:59

all right so we're going to go around

3:00

the drip line of this plant

3:02

now i'm just gonna make a little trench

3:04

here

3:05

the drip line just goes out to the outer

3:07

edge of the leaves

3:10

and so i have a third of a cup here

3:12

which my wife and i were debating

3:14

exactly how many tablespoons that was

3:16

and it's somewhere between five and six

3:18

so this is about five tablespoons here

3:20

so we're going to go in and put

3:22

this into the

3:23

[Music]

3:30

trench and then i'm going to go back

3:33

through and cover that up with soil and

3:35

water it in

3:36

all right so before covering this i'm

3:38

actually going to go through

3:39

and kind of scratch it in here a little

3:40

bit

3:42

i'm doing my best not to disturb the

3:44

roots of this plant

3:49

right there around that drip line

3:52

and then we'll come through

3:54

and cover that up with some more soil

3:58

now i'm going to mulch this and i'm

4:00

going to use my non-fish fertilizer

4:02

water to water it in and as you're

4:04

watering this plant too you want to

4:06

water away from the plant you don't want

4:08

to water the plant directly

4:09

watering the plant directly cools the

4:11

plant down and slows its growth and

4:13

actually on rainy days it can actually

4:15

completely stop the growth of these

4:17

plants so again we're going to water

4:18

around this drip line

4:20

being careful not to directly water the

4:21

plant

4:26

[Music]