Are my watermelons getting pollinated? Help please.

[jmrodrig]

Hello all,

I am growing watermelons for the first time and things have been going great. I have healthy vines with nice green leaves and plenty of male and female flowers. Many of the female flower bulbs (the little fruit under the female flower) are now the size of a big marble. Early in the female flower production stage, I saw female bulbs the size of peas. I have searched the internet everywhere but I cannot find how big an unpollinated female flower will grow before it falls off the vine.

If the little watermelons are the size of big marbles, does this mean they are filling with water because they were pollinated?

The plants I have will produce the oblong, light and dark striped rind watermelons. I leave for work too early in the morning to see whether the female flowers are opening during the day and by the time I get home the flowers are already closed for the day.

Any help is much appreciated.

[imafan26]

If the watermelon was not pollinated, the fruit will die off. I have not counted but that usually happens a week or two after it flowers. If your watermelon babies are at least that old the fruit may be growing.

[jmrodrig]

Thanks imafan26 for your response. If my watermelons are not getting pollinated by insects then I want to start manually pollinating them. But since I am at work all day I cant be there in the morning to self pollinate until the weekend.

If I wait to see the fruit fall off, then I am too late. And right now I have about 6 female flowers showing. 3 of them are large marble size and 3 are pea sized. Will the pea sized ones grow to large marble size as unpollinated watermelons or is pea sized the max they will grow before being pollinated?

[rainbowgardener]

I don't really know about watermelons, but as a parallel to zucchini, which will get a couple inches long unpollinated before they shrivel and die, I would guess the unpollinated fruit could get marble sized.

[applestar]

I would recommend just hand pollinating any female flowers that are open when you have the chance to get out there over the weekend regardless of whether the bees are doing their job or not.

[ReptileAddiction]

I agree with applestar. I have better fruit set on everything when I pollinate.